Star Trek: Imperator
by CAS2109
Summary: While following the trail of a damaged Borg Cube, the U.S.S. Imperator stumbles across a buried mystery and suddenly finds itself with seemingly no way to return to Federation space. The crew of the Imperator soon come to realise that far more than their own lives are in jeopardy as a new ageless foe skirts on the boundaries of the galaxy, while a familiar enemy lurks within...
1. Prologue - Rift

**Author's Foreword: I do not own Mass Effect or Star Trek, only the original content is mine.**

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 **[Prologue]**

 **["Rift"] – [Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S. _Imperator_ – Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Hotep Sector, Beta Quadrant] - [February 4th, 2410]**

 _Captain's Report; Stardate: 87094.43. Five years…Five long years…That's how long it took us to push the Borg back…At first it was going well…Then set-back after set-back…Loss after loss…The Borg turned what was meant to be a quick and decisive win, into five years of hell…Of course that's all this sector is now: it's hell out there…But now it's ours again…_

* * *

 **STAR TREK: IMPERATOR**

* * *

"Computer, halt log recording," Captain Richard Lester ordered with a brief look over his shoulder towards his personal computer atop his desk on the other side of his chambers. A brief electronic _chirp_ affirmed his order, letting the aging captain return to some of his more private thoughts about the Borg that he wasn't entirely comfortable putting on record at the moment.

Of all the Starfleet campaigns he'd fought in throughout his fifty-odd years at Starfleet; none had been as bloody or as mentally taxing as the war against the Borg Collective. His thoughts continued to meander through his mind as he clasped his hands behind his back and looked once again out of the large observation window which dominated the far wall of his quarters, letting his eyes wander across the endless star fields in view; it was an even more impressive view since the ship was currently at warp.

Lester frowned as he continued his train of thought; from where he stood, Task Force Omega, while noble in concept, was a standing monument to everything that was equally rotten in all the major powers in the Quadrant, it was filled to the brim with glory-hunters and thrill seekers; a Joint-Federation-Klingon-Romulan organisation sorely lacking in the fundamental strengths of any of its contributors and in experienced crews.

And it had suffered dearly for it.

Lester dared not to think of the Disaster at NGC-4447; where a Task Force Omega fleet, tailing a Borg fleet they had previously shattered to pieces at the Battle of Zemet, were drawn far outside the typical Task Force Omega logistics network and into a three-pronged Borg pincer movement before being subsequently annihilated. The _Imperator_ had been the first to respond to the brief surge in distress signals but arrived as the last Borg cube warped out; leaving behind a massacre on the scale of the Second Battle of Chin'toka.

In the month that followed the disaster, a StarFleet tribunal came to the conclusion that the Borg had intentionally lost the Battle of Zemet to draw out an overconfident Task Force Omega fleet and destroy it in a devastating ambush – which was exactly what happened.

Needless to say, Lester wasn't entirely too pleased with the Federation, StarFleet or the rest of the Task Force right now when it seemed that history was repeating; and was looking like he and the rest of his crew would be paying the price.

The _Imperator_ had been tailing a Borg Cube which had been barely managing to limp ahead of them for the better part of the last three days as it retreated towards the edge of the Hotep Sector after the Borg defeat at the Battle of Relay 314, where the Task Force had managed to isolate a Borg relay station from the rest of the Collective before sending in a strike force to destroy it. While the operation had been a complete success, Richard had been getting bad vibes about the fleeing cube ever since the chase began and had repeatedly called for reinforcements to ensure that when the _Imperator_ finally nailed the Borg cube to one place, it wasn't suddenly enveloped by a Borg relief force.

"Resume log," Lester uttered as he returned to his desk and sat down, "The _Imperator_ has so far followed the Borg Cube through a dozen uncharted systems at the edge of the Hotep sector, all of which we have tagged for future exploration. However, I am confident that the Borg are running out of places to run as during our last encounter we detected readings coming from the cube that are typically associated with a Warp Core overload. We are currently half an hour from the cube's last recorded warp signature, hopefully we can finish this game of cat-and-mouse the Borg are playing with us and return to Spacedock for some much needed shore leave…I for one know that the crew needs it…"

* * *

"Captain on the bridge!" announced Lester's first officer, an Andorian commander by the name of Thys Ohozi, as he stood up from the Captain's chair, "The ship is yours, we should be coming out of warp any minute now and entering the system designated as NGC-4487, Captain."

"Thank you, Number One," Lester acknowledged with a smile as he ascended the small step to the central command deck of the bridge which was typical to Odyssey-class vessels, glancing at the large curved view-screen on his right before turning and walking to his chair, just as he sat down and looked directly at the view-screen.

His senior bridge officers occupied a trio of small dual-stations in front of him; helm control and weapons directly in-front, sensor operations - including communications - to the right and shields and other subsytems to the left. A multitude of other consoles,much larger in nature, dominated the circular walls of the moderately large bridge - though they were divided by a thin semi-transparent divider wall after every two console stations; with numerous other consoles jutting out from the wall in the from of interactive transparent screens or small pedestals.

After a few moments his helmsman, a Bolian Lieutenant Commander called Tlalve, dropped the ship out of warp – Richard turned to his science officer, a Trill, "Miranda, situation update please."

"Heading is currently two-one-zero, beginning system scan…" Miranda's response was brief and to the point, as per usual, "We have a yellow main-sequence star…Around halfway through its life-cycle; with two planets in orbit, a class K and a class J…Nothing out of the ordinary for a small system like this…"

Richard leaned forward slightly on his chair, keeping his right arm anchored on the armrest as he looked at the view-screen again, "And the Borg?"

"Still looking…" Miranda replied, looking quickly at Lester as she spoke, "They should still be here…I'm not detecting any warp signa-" a red flash appeared on the view-screen as the Borg cube was detected and highlighted, "Got them! The Borg cube is maintaining a standard orbit above the K-class planet…" she entered a series of additional commands into her console frowning, "Captain…I'm not detecting any power output from the cube…"

Thys and Lester shared a quick look, "None?" Thys asked as he scratched his chin, he turned back to Lester, "Dormant perhaps?

"No, Commander…" Miranda interjected, "Cubes are powered even when dormant, albeit to a much smaller degree than normal…" the Trill paused again, furrowing her brow as she ran her eyes over the readouts on her console again, "But I'm getting nothing at all…No EM, nothing…"

Captain Lester went silent at that, chewing on the side of his mouth in thought before sharing another concerned look with his first officer.

"I don't like this…" Thys spoke first, echoing Richard's own thoughts as the Captain nodded slowly in agreement, "It stinks of a trap…"

"Very much so…" Richard agreed quickly, looking between his first officer and the view-screen before pausing momentarily, "But it also presents an opportunity…Helm…Prepare to warp us into a high orbit of the planet…Lagrange Point One preferably."

"Captain?" Thys asked, the Andorian scrunching up his badly scarred face in confusion, his face remained like this until a thought struck him; his mouth slipped into a sly grin, "What are you thinking?"

"The Borg could be waiting for us to come into range of their transporters…" Lester reasoned, "Power-up…Board us and take us out before we fire a shot…"

What Lester described was a tactic the Borg had been known to use before on occasion, where they faked the dormancy of their vessels in order to entice vessels – and even entire fleets – closer before eliminating them with an en-mass boarding action that overwhelmed the crew, often without having to fire a shot from their ships.

"So what do you propose?" Thys mused as he sat back in his chair.

"If we hold an orbit close to the planet's Lagrange One point, we'll be able to carry out an in-depth scan of both the cube and the side of planet it's currently positioned over…" Richard explained clearly as the ship began to accelerate, "See what the situation is…"

Thys was silent for a few seconds before nodding, "I concur with the Captain's reasoning…But as soon as the opportunity presents itself, we _must_ destroy that cube…"

"I am aware Number One," Richard agreed, his voice quieting, "The more time we spend chasing it from system-to-system, the more likely it is we are engaged by Borg reinforcements…"

* * *

The K-class planet, designated as NGC-4487 II, hung motionless on the view-screen as Captain Lester surveyed the hellish-looking landscape below.

"Magnify…" Lester spoke as he stood up and walked towards the view-screen, stopping almost directly on-top of the small step which separated the three dual-officer stations from the small circular command platform.

The screen briefly flickered before an enlarged view of the planet was displayed on the main-screen, Lester clasped his hands behind his back again and studied the terrain of the planet as Miranda started another scan; his eyes hovering over the eerily perfect dimensions of the blacked-out Borg cube as it crossed the day-night terminus line of the planet.

A few seconds passed, each one filling the Captain with greater concern as the Borg cube passed out of visible range; consumed by the inky blackness of the planet's shadow as it crossed onto the dark-side of the planet.

"Captain?" Miranda spoke up as she swivelled in her chair to face Richard, "Still nothing from the cube," Richard nodded at that, his face unmoving as he thought over that glaring irregularity again, "But I have detected Borg activity on the surface…"

Richard's head snapped away from the screen at Miranda's report, "Show me."

Miranda nodded quickly, turning back around to face her station before entering a series of commands into her console; the view-screen snapped away from the view of the planet, changing to a top down view of the planet's northern polar region.

"What have we got?" Richard asked as he turned his head back towards the view-screen.

"I'm detecting a large concentration of Borg in this location," a red icon appeared on the map as Miranda spoke, flashing for a few seconds as she pinged the edge of a polar ice sheet, "They appear to be specifically concentrated by a surface-crack on one of the larger glacial sheets in the region…"

"What's going on here?" Thys muttered as he stood up and walked over to join Richard in-front of the view-screen, "The Borg haven't been known to do this in this sector…" Richard nodded grimly as he looked between his first officer and the map, "They only land on a planet to assimilate life-forms on the surface, something this planet sorely lacks," he added with a nod towards the map.

Richard was silent for a few moments, he turned back towards Miranda, "Miranda, can our sensor penetrate that ice sheet? Find out what about that glacier has the Borg so captivated?"

Miranda entered another series of commands into her console, "I'll try, but I'm not sure how accurate the readings will be due to the depth of the ice sheet…"

"Noted," Richard said quickly, his tone unchanging, he turned back to Thys, "What do you make of this Number One?"

Thys scratched his check slowly at the question, "It's certainly not standard Borg behaviour…Especially for this cube, they'd usually have jumped to another system by now…"

Richard nodded, his first officer was right about that for sure; the Borg cube had barely spent 20 minutes in any one system during its retreat, never mind the hour and a half it had spent in this system alone.

"Captain," Miranda began as she turned around again, "Sensors aren't picking up anything specific…I'm only detecting a large concentration of various metals down there…"

"Processed or unrefined?" Richard asked quickly, the Captain knew that both options were likely very bad for his ship with the Borg involved.

"I'm unable to determine their nature…" Miranda answered a few seconds later, frustration noticeable in her tone, "Sorry, Captain."

"That's alright Lieutenant Commander," Richard uttered sympathetically before turning back to Thys, "What's your thoughts on the matter, Commander?"

The Andorian looked at the point on the map that Miranda had highlighted and scratched his chin, "Could either be a structure buried under the glacier or a concentrated vein of minerals…" Lester nodded, "Normally I wouldn't see the Borg stopping for either of them; unless they are guarded by beings they can easily assimilate…"

"Which doesn't seem to be the case here either," Richard said, continuing his first officer's point, "So we have ourselves a mystery, Number One…"

"We should take this opportunity to destroy the cube; the Borg seem preoccupied," Thys suggested as the view-screen switched back to their commanding view of the planet, "We may not get a better opportunity…"

Lester paused for a moment at the suggestion, taking a few moments to contemplate the idea; for all intents and purposes his first officer was entirely correct, the Borg wouldn't be able to effectively respond to an attack with their attention divided between the _Imperator_ and whatever they were doing on the planet. However, for all Richard knew, this was the spring for the Borg trap he'd been expecting.

"Sound a Yellow Alert," Richard commanded as he returned to his chair with Thys in-tow, the klaxon for the alert sounded immediately as a yellow light fell over the bridge in a sweeping pattern along the now-dimmed overhead lights, "Helm, set a course for the Cube; full impulse. Tactical, ready forward torpedo tubes with quantum torpedos and ready beam arrays…"

Lester shared a quick look with his first officer now that they were both seated, "Let's spring the trap then…Sensors! I want to know if there's the slightest hint of more Borg ships on an intercept course with us."

A resounding chorus of 'Aye sir's resonated across the bridge as Lester felt the mighty vessel accelerate beneath him.

* * *

"Red Alert!" Lester bellowed as he entered a series of commands into his armrest computer, "All hands to battle stations!"

The Borg Cube loomed above the _Imperator_ now, completely covering the entirety of the bridge view-screen even before the vessel entered effective weapons range. Even after more than five years of fighting the damned things, Lester couldn't shake the feeling of pure terror he felt when fighting such monstrous star ships.

"Still no energy output from the cube, Captain!" Miranda reported over the blaring of the red alert klaxon, Richard smiled; looks like Thys' gambit would be correct after all.

"Ready anti-proton beam banks one and two…" Richard commanded level-headedly as he glanced at the looming shape of the Cube on the view-screen, "Fire at will on my mark," he paused for a moment as he assessed the status of the cube, "Fire!"

The two tone blare preceding the firing of the beam array filled the bridge and soon the space between the two vessels was criss-crossed by dark crimson beams which cut through the unresistive hull of the cube, leaving behind terrible gashes and scars in their wake.

"Helm, drop us to one-half impulse power and standby to turn to port; tactical make ready for a volley of quantum torpedos from the forward tubes, full spread," Richard ordered in quick succession as the anti-proton beams made short work of the Borg Cube's hull, the various stations quickly reported that they were ready to carry out their tasks, "Execute!"

A barrage of quantum torpedos flew out from the front of the _Imperator_ , crossing the distance between the Federation vessel and the malformed cube in less than two seconds as the _Imperator_ veered to port, still firing an assortment of anti-proton beams from its forward arrays.

Lester gripped the edge of his armrest as the _Imperator_ began its large turning circle, "All batteries are clear to fire!" he ordered as the Cube entered the firing arcs of the _Imperator_ 's rear arrays and torpedo tubes.

"Captain the Cube's hull integrity has fallen to forty-three percent!" Miranda yelled across the bridge as another volley of torpedos were launched from the rear tubes of the _Imperator_ , "Still nothing from the cube!"

Richard was more than happy about that, "Keep up the fire then!" Lester ordered before turning to one of his most experienced Tactical officers, "Nick! Standby to hit that cube with a torpedo spread and a concentrated beam shot!"

"I'm on it, Captain!" Nick affirmed as he set to work on his console, a few moments later he turned to face Lester again as the _Imperator_ once again presented its fore-weapon arrays to the Cube, "Ready, Captain!"

"Captain!" Miranda shouted again, urgency in her voice as Lester looked at her, his mouth ready to give the command to Nick, "I'm getting a power surge!"

Lester's eyes shot back to the view-screen before Miranda had finished speaking, "From the Cube?" Lester asked quickly as he gave an affirmative hand gesture for Nick to fire.

"No, sir!" Miranda reported back as Nick's salvo began, the space between the _Imperator_ and Cube was soon filled with crimson red anti-proton beams and quantum torpedos, "From the planet! Directly where we detected that concentration of Borg!"

"The hell?!" Lester yelled as the Cube took the impact from Nick's salvo of intense fire and started to roll backwards, exposing the countless holes and craters that dotted its immense surface, he looked at Thys in concern.

"Captain…I…Uh," Miranda looked lost for words as the Cube powered up three seconds later, "There's an energy trail leaving the planet!"

"Direction?!" Lester demanded to know, "Helm! All emergency power to engines, back us up!"

The entire ship jerked uncomfortably as the engines were slammed into reverse and flooded with reserve power."

"Sir the Cube is advancing on us and locking weapons!" another bridge officer, a Vulcan by the name of Poss, yelled over the growing calamity on the bridge as the situation quickly deteriorated; the space around the Cube flickered as the next wave of ordinance harmlessly impacted against an unseen barrier, "It's rais-"

"Right towards us!" Miranda yelled, cutting off the rest of Poss' report as Lester looked back at the view-screen and cursed.

"Emergency evasive manoeuvres!" The Captain yelled as the ship started to turn on its axis to evade the first salvo of ordnance from the Borg Cube, "Get us out of the wa-"

Lester's sentence came to a sudden halt as a burst of white energy tore past the _Imperator_ , narrowly missing the ship, before terminating in a blinding flash of light that almost shorted the view-screen out – blinding many of the officers present.

Richard groaned as the ship shook underneath him, looking back at the view-screen as he blinked rapidly to clear his vision, his eyes widened as the view-screen cleared slightly. A colossal rift had formed in the space between the _Imperator_ and the Cube, it was blinding to look at, even with the view-screen attempting to compensate for the surge in the brightness levels – with bright flashes ebbing out of the rift every few seconds or so.

"What the hell is that?!" Lester asked aloud, pointing in the direction of the view-screen as he squinted his eyes to see through the freak-distortions along the edge of the rift.

"No idea, Captain!" Miranda replied over the persistent blaring of the klaxon as the Borg Cube stopped firing, "But whatever it is, the Cube is heading straight for it!"

Lester's eyes returned to the view-screen as the bridge windows behind him darkened, only to be confronted with the view of the colossal Borg Cube speeding straight for the _Imperator_ ; his hand shot for the ship-wide intercom, "All hands! Brace for impac-"

The Borg cube vanished in a flash of light as it made contact with the rift, causing the rift to pulse several times as Richard yelled at Tlalve to throw all the power into the engines and reverse.

The rift collapsed in on itself and dissipated, leaving the bridge crew of the _Imperator_ in a stunned silence as many of them let out a sigh of relief; Richard himself relaxed the painful grip he'd been holding onto his armrest with as the red alert klaxon continued to blare.

"Miranda…Situation update, please," Richard requested as he stood up and walked towards the now-empty view-screen, "Go to Yellow Alert…"

With Richard's order the intensity of the klaxon relaxed slightly and the room brightened up as the combat lighting gave way to the Yellow Alert bridge lighting, Miranda turned to face her console again, the Trill blinking just as fast as everyone else on the bridge as they all tried to clear the spots out of their vision.

"The Cube is gone…" Miranda reported after a short delay, "That's for certain, there's some residual phase-energy in the area but it's dispersing rapidly…" Miranda brought a chart from the ship's sensors and continued, "There was a local spike in the concentration of an element I'm not entirely familiar with right as the rift collapsed…" she turned around again and brought up a surface map of the same polar region, "As for surface activity, however…" Miranda paused as the _Imperator_ turned to face the planet and quickly began a scan of the region, "Looks like there's still plenty of Borg down there…" with that she trailed off, her brow furrowing in concern, "And…And they've found something in the ice…"

"Damn it," Richard muttered, dismayed at the news; who knew what the Borg had found down there? For all he knew right now, they were the ones who caused the rift, after all it would explain why the Cube powered up and charged directly towards where the rift would appear while exchanging as little fire with the _Imperator_ as possible, "Thys," Lester turned on the spot to face his first officer, "Organise an away team…" Thys nodded and quickly walked off of the bridge towards the turbolift as Richard turned to face Tlalve again, "Lieutenant Commander, bring us into low orbit above the planet's north pole…"

The helmsman wasted no time in plotting the new course as Lester stared at the surface map which was still on the view-screen, he clasped his hands tightly behind his back his let out a prolonged sigh, "This mission just got a lot more complicated…"

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: This is a fic I've been writing during my travels to and from university the past few days, it may end up being a one-shot piece but I'll likely continue it if I have the time and it picks up enough interest. The intent, as it stands anyway, was to have this lead into a Mass Effect crossover at some point, but we'll see how that pans out.**

 **As always, please leave feedback about your thoughts.**

 **Until next time,**

 **CAS2109**

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 **EDIT (01/11/2016): I've decided to change the _Imperator_ 's bridge from the Aquarius design to the standard Odyssey design after some thought on the matter; mainly because I believe that the standard Odyssey bridge is far more practical communication-wise (due to it being more open) than the Aquarius (where the Captain is shielded from half of the bridge by a wall for some reason). As such, I'll be revising the next few chapters where I've made references to the _Imperator_ 's bridge appearance, please let me know if you spot anything which I've missed during the course of this revision.**

 **EDIT (20/11/2016) - Yes I am still alive: I've reduced the _Imperator_ 's NX number to a more reasonable 97701 - changed from 93701 because STO's numbering system is stupid and gave me a number 4000 lower than it should have been.**


	2. Chapter 1 - Polar Expedition

**["Polar Expedition"] – [Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Low Orbit of** **NGC-4487 II,** **Hotep Sector, Beta Quadrant]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

 _Captain's Report, Supplemental; Stardate:_ _87094.52_ _. The Imperator has successfully gained control of the space around NGC-4487 II, I have given Miranda and my senior science staff the task of identifying what caused the anomaly that the Borg Cube used to escape. So far they have been able to determine that the anomaly was caused as a direct result of some object or structure buried under the glacial ice sheet where we detected a large Borg presence. I have ordered Commander Thys to organise an away team immediately so that we can get a closer look at whatever the Borg discovered on the surface…_

 _I have also dispatched word to the rest of the Task Force, the rest of the twenty-first wing are currently heading to this system at maximum warp to reinforce us along with elements from the fifth and sixth wings. We are to be relieved upon their arrival in approximately seven hours, I have already taken the liberty of ensuring that the quantum slipstream drive is ready for the voyage home…_

* * *

 _"_ _Captain, there's definitely something down here under the ice_ _,"_ Thys informed over a flickering video-link, the snow-covered EVA suit he was wearing obscured most of his facial features, but Lester could tell by the tone of his voice that he was startled, _"_ _I'm sending a selection of pictures we were able to take from our vantage point_ _,"_ a few seconds passed before a half-dozen images showing what appeared to be the entrance to the structure that the Borg had uncovered, _"_ _It's not much, but that's all we can get from this position…_ _"_

Lester nodded slowly as he looked at each of the pictures, the structure seemed to be an elegant design of curved architecture, with green lighting lining the interlinking sections of the greyish metal plates that made up the structure. If the design hadn't looked so elegant – and so organic and fluid – Lester would have just chalked it up to being a Borg structure.

"What about the Borg?" Lester asked, continuing his mental train of thought at he looked over the next picture.

 _"_ _There's definitely plenty of Borg down here_ _,"_ Thys said quickly as he looked over his shoulder, _"_ _They're all over the entrance to whatever they found in the ice…_ _"_

"Any idea what they're doing?" Richard continued, stroking his chin in thought as he looked back at the video-feed of Thys.

 _"_ _None…_ _"_ Thys answered quickly, _"_ _The Borg that we've seen on the surface haven't moved in the entire time we've been down here…_ _"_

Miranda perked up at that report, she looked at Richard, "Captain, perhaps with the absence of the Cube and the recent destruction of the Relay station, many of the Borg on the planet have lost their connection to the Collective."

Richard nodded, a grim thought permeating his mind as he spoke, "And since we're still within the time window between them losing contact with the Collective and the deactivation of the Borg implants, they've entered a dormant state…"

"There's still a chance this is a Borg ruse," Miranda pointed out as she stood up from her station, "I'd need to go down to the surface and set up a localised scanning grid to monitor their activity direc-"

Thys cut Miranda off quickly as Lester raised his eyebrow at the Trill's assertiveness, _"_ _Lieutenant Commander Sabine, there's no way you're coming down here until we get a fixed perimeter set up..._ _"_

Miranda Sabine huffed playfully at the Andorian's remark as she grabbed her PADD from the underside of her console and walked over to join Richard in the centre of the command platform, "As much as I appreciate the concern, Commander. I think I can handle myself against a few inactive Borg husks…"

Richard chuckled under his breath at Miranda's comment as he turned to face her, "Very well, Miranda; get a selection of the science team together, suit up and report to transporter pad three," Richard turned back to face Thys, "I'm sending another three tactical teams down to support you, Commander. Get a dedicated observational post set up as soon as you can," Lester's hand shot out to his side to block Miranda as she started to walk towards the turbolift, "The _slightest_ sign of danger and I'm pulling you and the rest of your team out, I'm not losing anyone at the last hurdle…" he cocked his head towards her with a stern look on his face, " _Is that understood?_ "

Miranda nodded quickly, "Understood, Captain," she agreed before Richard nodded and lowered his arm, simultaneously dismissing her and allowing the Trill to exit the bridge via the turbolift.

Richard turned back to face Thys, who was shaking his head slowly with a barely noticeable grin on his face, "Once you have the observation post set up, see if you can get any better pictures of the entrance to that structure…" Thys nodded as one of his away team came into frame, the two looked at a PADD quickly before the Andorian looked back at Richard again, "The more information we can recover before our relief force arrives, the quicker we can go home and put this curiosity to the side…"

 _"_ _I'll hold you to that when we get back to Spacedock_ _,"_ Thys smirked before taking a step backwards, _"_ _Thys out…_ _"_

"See you in a few hours, Commander," Richard finished with a curt nod before the feed terminated, returning the viewscreen to the view of the planet below.

Richard stepped back from the screen and turned to face the direction of his read-room, "Nick, you have the con…" he stated as he left the bridge, leaving the Lieutenant Commander as the Acting-Captain, "Poss, forward those pictures of the structure to my PADD," the Vulcan nodded as the Captain passed his station, "I'm going to do some digging…"

* * *

 **[** **Thys Ohozi** **] – [Commander, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [** **NGC-4487 II,** **Hotep Sector, Beta Quadrant]** **\- [February 4th, 2410 – One Hour Later]**

"You all set, Lieutenant Commander?" Thys asked as he stepped inside the main pressurised room of the small observation post and removed his EVA helmet, the far wall of which contained a window which gave a commanding view of the area between them and the entrance to the structure.

"As far as I can tell, yes," Miranda answered, looking up from the console she was working on, she was still wearing her EVA suit despite having been in the room for almost an hour now, her helmet was located on a nearby desk as far as Thys could tell, "I've got the scanners monitoring the surrounding area for Borg sub-space transmissions."

"Have you detected anything?" Thys asked as he leant against a nearby wall and crossed his arms, "I'd rather we didn't keep the Captain waiting."

Miranda smirked, "No, nothing yet," she handed Thys a nearby PADD, "At least nothing that would classify as Borg activity."

Thys began reading over the wall of text on the PADD's display, he glanced up at Miranda's comment, "What do you mean?"

Miranda entered a command into the console, a few moments later a holographic representation of the area surrounding area was displayed in the space between the Commander and the Trill, "All the drones that our sensors have catalogued so far might as well be dead considering what we're detecting from them. However," Miranda looked back up from the console towards the projection, "In the time we've had this gear running, the sensors picked up what I can only describe to be a sub-space pulse."

Thys handed the PADD back to Miranda, "Where's it coming from? The structure?"

Miranda nodded, she pinged a location which was underneath the projected map, "As far as I can tell, it's coming from this location, plus or minus a dozen metres…" she trailed off, looking annoyed with herself, "Not my best uncertainty reading but considering it's so faint, I'm amazed the sensor's detected it at all…"

Thys chuckled, "I think the Captain and I can forgive you this time around," Miranda smiled back as Thys put his helmet back on, "Good work, Lieutenant Commander."

"Thank you sir," Miranda nodded in appreciation as Thys turned to leave, "You heading back towards the structure?" The Andorian nodded slowly, fully aware of what the Lieutenant Commander was going to say next, "I'm coming with you."

As the Trill picked up her helmet and pocketed the PADD, Thys crossed his arms again, "And I suppose there's no talking you out of this?"

Miranda's urgency in getting her gear together in order to leave quickly answered the Commander's question in itself, "What's gotten you so…" Thys paused for a moment as he tried to remember the rest of the expression, "Uppity, this mission?"

"Oh, I don't know," Miranda sighed, her tone clearly sarcastic, but not aggressively so, "Borg acting beyond what they usually do. A mysterious portal swallowing a cube. And an army of Borg sitting on top of a glacier doing nothing…" Miranda paused as she remembered the Captain's brief words to her on the bridge, "And it's our last mission before we head back…So, take your pick."

Thys huffed before lower his arms and nodding in the direction of the exit, "Finish getting your gear together and meet me and the rest of my team by the lip of the hill…"

Miranda looked up as the Commander spoke, "Will do," she answered quickly before grabbing a selection of hand-held scanners and attaching them to her EVA suit's equipment belt.

With that being said, Thys turned on the spot and walked back through the observation post's exit and sealing the airlock behind him.

* * *

" _I never expected to get this close_ …" Miranda breathed over the radio, her voice full of bewilderment as she looked over the edge of the team's cover, a rocky outcrop overlooking the entrance to the structure, her eyes seemed to fall on the mass of Borg drones out in the open who were standing motionless and staring at the horizon; despite the unnerving sight, her tone was somewhere between excited and tense, " _Are you sure we're safe here?_ "

"It's amazing how close you can get to something when the people guarding it are technically dead," Thys commented dryly as he shot a sideways glance at the Trill; who hadn't paid the Andorian's remark any attention by the looks of things as she was already in the process of running a scan of the surrounding area with one of the scanners that had previously been attached to her equipment belt.

" _It's huge_!" Miranda exclaimed as she removed a second scanner from her equipment belt, attaching the first one again, and took a quick reading from the surrounding area, " _Way bigger than it looked on the scanners_!"

"On the surface?" Thys asked as he turned to face Miranda, confusion noticeable in his tone, "Surely the _Imperator_ 's scanners would have been more than accurate-"

" _On the surface, they were_ ," Miranda explained quickly as she looked at the readings from the second scan, " _But under this ice-sheet it's a different story entirely…It's as if the sensors were covertly scrambled by something…_ " Miranda backed away from the outcropping and attached the second scanner to her belt, " _I'm sending this data back to the Imperator once I look over it back at the observation post._ "

"Anything else in the area you want to check out, Lieutenant Commander?" Thys asked as he backed away from the edge and joined Miranda, a few of Thys' tactical operatives remained at the outcropping to maintain an overwatch position, "We're not due to head back for another half-hour…"

Miranda was silent for a few seconds, while she looked calm; her tone suggested that she was hesitant, " _Could we get closer to the entrance itself?_ "

Thys gave shook his head at that, "Not without requesting orbital support," he gestured back to the army of dormant Borg over the hill, "I'm not getting pressed up against of wall with that many Borg nearby, dormant or not."

Miranda paused for a moment before nodding in agreement, " _Call the Captain, thinning their numbers down shouldn't put the structure in jeopardy…_ "

* * *

 _Nothing._

The irritating lack of results on the structure was starting to rub the Captain in very much the wrong way. For starters; he wasn't getting a match on the architecture style, that alone didn't bode well. The Federation had catalogued the cultural styles of hundreds of species over the centuries of its existence, the fact that he wasn't getting a match meant that this was either a new species – or someone had deleted the record of this one from the archives.

And with the Borg involved here, Richard wasn't sure what was worse.

Richard let out a sigh as he put the PADD he was reading down on his ready room desk, he began tapping his fingers on the desk in thought. There had to be something he was missing.

"Bridge to Captain Lester," Nick's voice rang out over Richard's combadge, jerking the Captain out of his thoughts and back to the present, "Commander Thys would like to speak with you, sir…"

"On my way," Lester replied matter-of-factly as he stood up and walked towards the door, he entered the bridge proper a few seconds later.

"Captain," Nick said with a nod as he stood up from the Captain's chair and snapped off a quick salute, "The chair is yours."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Commander," Lester said with a nod before he sat down and the tactical officer returned to his usual post, "Put Commander Thys though…"

" _Captain_ ," Thys' voice began a second later, " _We managed to make it closer to the structure._ "

"How close, exactly?" Richard asked, his tone one of concern as he sat forward in his chair.

" _Close enough that the number of Borg down here are starting to concern me_ ," Thys answered quickly, " _I'd like to request orbital support._ "

Richard frowned at Thys' statement; Thys had obviously gotten far closer than Lester had ordered him to, "Commander, request denied; pull back to the observation post and await the arrival of the relief force."

" _Sir, if we get a strike now we'll be able to reach the entrance,_ " Miranda's voice protested quickly, " _Maybe even-_ "

"It's not our job to reach the entrance, Lieutenant Commander," Richard spoke harshly, cutting off the Trill mid-sentence, "Request denied, pull back to the observation post before I revoke my previous generosity."

" _But-_ " Miranda tried to continue, however she was quickly cut off by the Captain before she'd even began.

"No 'buts', Lieutenant Commander," Richard interrupted, "Pull back now, that's an order," The Captain's declaration resulted in a few moments of tense silence as he tapped his hand gingerly against his chair's armrest, "If you feel so inclined to investigate that structure I suggest you wait until the relief force arrives; until that happens, however, we are under orders to monitor the situation – not interfere in it. Lester out…"

The line went dead as Lester killed the channel with a frustrated tap on his armrest control console, he sighed inwardly at Miranda's stubbornness; knowing full well that he wouldn't hear the end of it until they returned to Spacedock.

As Richard sat back in his chair again, making a mental note to speak with Commander Ohozi upon his return, he was _extremely_ thankful that quantum slipstream drives had recently been brought into service.

* * *

"We've got the relief fleet on short-ranged sensors now," reported Nick as over a half-dozen StarFleet vessels of varying classes dropped out of warp thirty kilometres from the _Imperator_ 's bow, "It appears that some of the reserve elements of the fleet are lagging behind somewhat…"

Richard nodded slowly, he'd been on the bridge non-stop for a few hours now assisting the crew with menial tasks in an effort to pass the time and had looked noticeably bored until the fleet had dropped out of warp, "Lieutenant Commander, hail the U.S.S. _Sagittarius_."

Nick wordlessly agreed and several seconds later the view-screen switched from displaying the approaching fleet of Federation ships to the face of the fleet's commander, Admiral T'Rena Valitreah T'Gai. The young Vulcan Admiral and Lester had a long history together, having fought alongside one another on numerous occasions during the campaign against the Borg across the Quadrant.

T'Rena, very much unlike Lester, had blitzed her way to the top ranks of StarFleet over the course of a decade; demonstrating exceptional, and often dangerous combat ability - which Lester had frequently chalked up to her being half-Romulan. T'Rena had also been one of a collection of Admirals that had stood with Lester in trying to organise a shake-up of Task Force Omega.

"Admiral T'Gai," Richard greeted with a respectful smile as the two veterans shared a moment of eye contact, "Welcome to NCG-4487 II; did you enjoy your voyage here?"

" _No more than you enjoyed waiting for us_ ," T'Rena replied with a chuckle, " _It is agreeable to see you again, Captain Lester. You were right in your report; this system is entirely unremarkable…_ "

"Only on the surface, Admiral," Richard assured as he motioned for Nick to transmit a data package, "I'm sending you the location of the structure my First Officer and a collection of away teams are currently surveying within the planet's northern polar region as well as what we've been able to scrape together about what this structure is."

" _Interesting_ ," T'Rena muttered as her eyes drifted away from Lester towards were the data must've been displayed on her bridge, " _Once my fleet has established itself in a standard orbit, we'll assist with ground operations…_ " the Vulcan trailed off for a few seconds, " _How many Borg are still down there?_ "

"Our estimates put around a few hundred Borg on the surface," Lester replied matter-of-factly, taking a moment to scratch at his greying moustache, "But we have no idea on how many are inside the structure…" The Captain paused, "I don't imagine that any of them will be a threat…They've been disconnected from the Collective for some time now."

" _Indeed_ ," T'Rena agreed quickly, " _I'll inform the Nightingale and the Victoria that they should prepare to receive Borg casualties_ ," she paused again as she motioned towards one of her bridge officers for that order to be carried out, " _Inform your First Officer that support will be arriving shortly, T'Rena out_."

The view-screen snapped back to the view of the approaching Federation ships, which were by this point much closer, Richard sat forward in his chair and looked at Nick.

"Lieutenant Commander, relay that information to Commander Ohozi," Lester ordered as he clasped his hands on one knee and looked around the bridge, he sat back in his chair and tapped his armrest console, "This is the Captain, all stations are to report departure readiness to the bridge as soon as possible."

* * *

" _-ator to Commander Ohozi_ ," a lone voice awoke Thys from his short nap, jolting his head up from his chest as he looked around the interior of the observation post; briefly attracting the eyes of two security officers, who were in the middle of a game of chess, due to how sudden his initial movements were, " _Imperator to Commander Ohozi_."

Thys shook his head to both sides quickly before activating his combadge and standing up, "Thys here, go ahead _Imperator_."

" _The relief force has arrived in orbit; ground support is expected to arrive planet side very soon_ ," came the voice of Lieutenant Commander Nicholas McDonald in response, " _Is everything okay down there?_ "

"Yup, everything is very much functional down here," Thys replied quickly, suppressing a laugh when his eyes fell upon Miranda, who was completely out cold and was face-down at her terminal, "When should we be expecting those reinforcements?"

" _We haven't been given an exact time at this moment, Commander_ ," Nick's voice apologised after a short delay, " _We'll inform you when we know m-_ "

Thys winced as the channel cut out in a hiss of static, he turned on the spot in alarm as Miranda's PADD started flashing a dark red; jolting the Trill out of her slumber as everyone in the room looked between Thys and the flashing PADD.

"Lieutenant Commander, situation report," Thys asked quickly as the Andorian noticed a faint rumble beneath his feet, "What's happening?"

"Uh…" the Trill spluttered as she picked up her nearby PADD and started to frantically read through it, "Oh no," her eyes widened in horror, "We've…we've got to get out of here," she shot to her feet and started to gather together her things in a panic, "There's a concentrated build-up of particle energy coming from the structure," she turned and handed the PADD to Thys, "It's priming again!"

The Andorian's hand shot towards his combadge, "Thys to _Imperator_ , we need an emergency beam-out now!"

The silence that answered him only filled a pit of horror in the Andorian's stomach, he activated his combadge again, " _Imperator_?!"

* * *

Captain Lester's eyes shot back to Nick as the officer's head recoiled in pain, his ears picking out the sound of static coming from his console, "Lieutenant Commander, report."

"I just lost the signal, Captain…" Nick reported quickly, his hands moving quickly over the surface of his console as he tried to re-establish a communications link with the Commander, "One moment…"

Lester stood up and walked over to the Commander, looking over the man's shoulder at the readouts on his console, "What's causing all of that interference?" he asked, pointing at the random fluctuations coming from all around the observation post.

"No idea," Nick answered briefly, his voice trailing off as he tried to adjust the frequency, the Lieutenant Commander's eyes darted back and forth between the collection of rapidly increasing numbers, "Sir, the interference is increasing in intensity…"

Richard tapped the top of Nick's chair for a few moments, his eyes looking at each of the numbers in turn before he stepped back and activated his combadge, "Transporter rooms three, four and five; beam the Commander's team aboard as soon as you get a lock…"

He turned on his heels and walked briskly back to his command chair before sitting down and turning to face his communications officer, "Hail the _Sagittarius_ ," a few seconds passed before Admiral T'Rena's face once again occupied the view-screen, Lester skipped straight to the point before T'Rena even had a chance to offer greetings again, "Admiral, we have a problem on the surface."

" _What's happened_?" T'Rena asked, looking concerned at Lester's tone as she sat forward in her chair; her piercing blue eyes locking with Lester's.

"We've just lost contact with our away team," Richard answered quickly, scratching the side of his head as he spoke before continuing, "There appears to be a rapidly intensifying interference pattern in close proximity to my away team's observational post and the struc-" Richard trailed off as the realisation hit him, he stood up and adjusted his command uniform with a small downwards tug, "Red Alert!"

The lights dimmed on the bridge again as the klaxon blared out in tune with the steady red pulses of light which ran up the bridge, Richard looked back at T'Rena, "I'd advise you get the fleet ready to make a sudden departure, that interference is coming from the area around the structure."

T'Rena caught onto what Richard had realised quickly as she killed the channel and ordered the entire fleet to go to Red Alert; the Federation fleet quickly broke off from its standard orbit of the planet and formed up in a loose wedge formation in a high orbit of the north pole. The _Imperator_ had not yet made any attempt to join the formation as Richard had become preoccupied with getting his crew off of the planet, with the effort of doing so becoming harder with each passing second.

"Captain, the intensity of the interference pattern has double again!" alerted Poss as he poured over the readings on his console, "I am detecting a significant build-up of energy beneath the surface…"

Richard looked at the view-screen before turning to face the Vulcan, "Options?"

"If we were closer and had a line of sight I should be able to acquire a transporter lock on Commander Ohozi and the away team," Poss replied as he glanced up from his station, "At the current rate of interference increase, we need to lower our orbit by around one hundred kilometres over the northern polar region to achieve a lock."

"Sir, that would put us within the planet's atmosphere," Nick pointed out quickly as Richard looked back at the view-screen, though he didn't offer an objection to the idea.

"The atmosphere of this planet will affect us negligibly at that altitude," The Captain retorted as he sat down again and held onto his armrest firmly, "All hands, brace for minor turbulence! Helm, full impulse!"

The ship rocked forwards as it raced down to meet the planet's atmosphere, with Richard eyeing the view-screen; his grip on the armrest tightening at the terrifying view of the planet's surface rushing up to meet them as the _Imperator_ shook gently beneath his feet once the bow started to cut through the upper atmosphere a few seconds later.

"Thirty kilometres until acquisition point," Poss reported over the blaring of the Red Alert klaxon, three seconds passed, "Twenty-Five kilometres…"

Richard activated a direct communications link to the transporter rooms with a quick series of taps on his armrest control console, "Bridge to transporter rooms; stand-by to beam up the away teams…"

A bright flash of light on the view-screen almost directly ahead of them on the planet's surface tore every eye on the bridge towards it, only for a shout from Poss to send everyone into a near-panic, "It's another trail! Identical make up to the last one!"

"Stand by for emergency evasives!" Richard ordered as the ship lurched beneath them, nosediving slightly to starboard as the starboard nacelle as hit by a wave of upper-atmosphere turbulence, which was quickly corrected as the vessel groaned in response to the corrective manoeuvres, "What's the heading on the energy trail?"

"Inconclusive…" Poss replied quickly, "It's hovering just above the structure…Wait…" the intensity of the flash ahead of them increased, "It's accelerating towards the fleet! Speed is…0.01c…"

Richard gasped, at that speed the fleet barely had ten seconds to get out of range, "Open a channel to the fleet! Now!"

One precious seconds passed as the energy blast blew past the Imperator at a blistering velocity, causing most of the on-board lights to flicker, before an ensign operating the communications station spoke up, "Channel op-"

Richard wasted no time as he began speaking, cutting off the ensign mid-report as he tried to warn the Admiral, "Admiral T'Rena you need to go to warp _now_ , we don't have time to explain."

A shimmering sound behind Lester made the Captain let out a sigh of relief as his ears picked up the distinct shimmering sound of a transport; he glanced over his shoulder to see Miranda and Thys standing at the back of the room, the two quickly rushed to their stations. With Richard giving them both a relieved look as he gave Thys a pat on the shoulder on his way past.

"Sir, transporter room reports that the rest of Commander Ohozi's team are aboard!" Poss reported as the seconds ticked down, the view-screen changed to show the rear view of the _Imperator_ , "Wait…That's not right…"

Richard's head snapped in the Vulcan's direction, "What?"

"The energy trail just stopped and accelerated to 0.01c in less than a second…" The Vulcan trailed off before giving Richard a rare look of horror, "It's coming right back at us!"

Richard and Thys turned to look at the view-screen as the trail of energy became a ball that rapidly expanded in size at an impossible rate, the Captian looked at Tlalve as the helmsman pulled the _Imperator_ out of its nosedive towards the planet until it was level with the horizon, "Helm! Warp one! Enga-"

The entire bridge seemed to simply evaporate around Richard as darkness consumed the Captain, his ship and his crew.

* * *

 **[** **T'Rena Valitreah T'Gai** **] – [Admiral, U.S.S.** _ **Sagittarius**_ **– Prometheus Class Refit; NCC-98105, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [High Orbit of** **NGC-4487 II,** **Hotep Sector, Beta Quadrant]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

The Silence was palpable on the bridge of the _Sagittarius_ as the ball of white energy engulfed the U.S.S. _Imperator_ and vanished; in less than a second, all trace of the enormous Odyssey-class cruiser, its crew of nearly three thousand StarFleet officers and one of the most experienced StarFleet Captains T'Rena had ever come know were gone, replaced by a rapidly dispersing cloud of phase-energy.

"Admiral, there's nothing t-" one of T'Rena's officers spoke up, ending the silence on the bridge before the Vulcan held up a hand to abruptly silence him.

"Send a coded sub-space transmission to StarFleet command," T'Rena ordered as she sat back in her chair and let out a distressed sigh, "Inform them that due to the sudden loss of the U.S.S. _Imperator,_ we're quarantining this system…Significant reinforcements are requested…"

"Aye ma'am," the officer replied quickly as he set to work arranging the message.

"Alert the fleet that we are going to rendezvous in orbit of the Class-J planet on the other side of the system…" The Vulcan admiral continued, glancing at the empty space on view-screen which the _Imperator_ had occupied only a minute before, "Lay in a course and go to Warp one…Let's put some distance between ourselves and this planet until we get an idea of what the hell is going on here…"

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: And there we go; Chapter 1 has been completed and thus the real story begins. As this had also been largely written on bus journeys to and from my university, there may be errors throughout this chapter which I may have overlooked – please point them out to me if you come across any.**

 **I'd like to thank RedShirt047, who's feedback was utterly invaluable and resulted in several crucial edits being made to the last chapter which I likely wouldn't have picked up on.**

 **As always, please leave feedback about your thoughts or PM me.**

 **Until next time,**

 **CAS2109**


	3. Chapter 2 - Cold Restart

**["Cold Restart"] – [Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Location Unknown, Other Side of the Rift]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

"Report!" Captain Lester ordered through a pained groan as he fought the overwhelming urge to start dry-heaving; he was face down on the floor with his eyes shut, bracing for the sicking feeling to hit him again like a freight train, " _Report_!"

A distant voice answered him, causing Lester to slowly open his eyes as he rolled over onto his back and let out a pained gasp; he was met by a deep blackness, the bridge lights had failed and – from the looks of things – most of the consoles had as well, leaving the bridge coated in a darkness punctuated only by the occasional pulse of emergency lighting.

His eyesight blurred as he tried to sit up and a painful ringing shot through his ears, making the Captain wince at the sensation and causing him to bow his head forwards before covering it with his hands as the disorienting feeling assaulted his senses. The voice shouted again, though he could barely make out what it was saying over the ringing in his ears; he looked up and around the bridge again. This time he could make out shapes moving in the darkness, albeit slowly, many of them trying to get up from the ground and those that had gotten to their feet already were simply standing in place and looking around, seemingly in shock.

Richard flinched as a pair of hands grabbed his shoulder, he looked at the hands but couldn't make out the person they belonged to in the darkness; until they spoke.

"Captain," came the unmistakable gruff voice of Commander Thys Ohozi as the Andorian tightened his grip on Richard's shoulder and began helping the man to his feet, "Are you alright?"

"I think so," Richard answered as he swayed on his feet for a few seconds before the nauseous feeling subsided, he looked around the bridge slowly as his eyes started to adjust to the low-light level, not that it helped, "What's our situation?"

"I'm not entirely sure what it's like elsewhere on the ship, but we've got LCARS crashes on most, if not all, of the consoles on the bridge, main power appears to be gone; so no shields, weapons, engines, warp drive, transporters-"

"Emergency power should keep turbolifts and gravity online for now," Richard muttered absentmindedly as the two turned to glance at the turbolift off of the bridge, the Captain's eye wandered to the inactive view-screen, "But the most pressing issue after all of that, Number One," Lester and Thys began to walk alongside each other as the Captain led the way towards the barely lit corridor on the far side of the bridge and into the small ready room, the two walked in the direction of the 'window' (though the material it is made from was many magnitudes stronger than glass) and stared out into the star-filled space beyond, the entire scene in-front of them moved faster than it should have – suggesting that not only were the orbiting something, but also that the _Imperator_ was in a slight forward tumble; the Captain's eye hovered over numerous star clusters, then the planet below them as Richard noted that they were starting to emerge from the dark-side of the planet before he turned back to face his first officer, "Where the hell are we?"

"Certainly not in orbit of NGC-4487 II," Thys replied quickly, concern written all over his features as he nodded in the direction of the planet below them, as the local star began to rise above the horizon in front of them before the _Imperator_ 's tumbling saw the star taken out of view as the surface of the planet, entirely different to the distinctly pockmarked surface of NGC-4487 II – quickly proving Thys correct on his statement, began to roll past them in a brilliant display of colour, "This planet looks more like a Class M…"

"Although a fairly cold one by the looks of it," Richard commented as his eyes caught sight of seemingly endless snow plains, he made a mental note to perform a more in-depth scan of the planet once main power had been restored to the _Imperator_ , he paused as the ship's tumbling motion brought two new objects into view, "And this one has moons," Richard nodded in the direction of the shapes of the planet's two moons as the ship continued to tumble 'forwards', taking much of the planet's surface out of view as quickly as it appeared – leaving only the view of the moons.

Thys and Richard stared out of the window for a few minutes longer, enough to see what was out there after five or six more 'rotations' of the ship. Richard then turned and left the room, heading back up the corridor towards the bridge; upon entering the command room, Lester was relieved to see that the majority of the bridge crew were unhurt – a fortunate turn of events in the ten minutes or so that he and Thys had been in the ready room, with the most serious injury being that of a concussion – no doubt caused by the officer falling and hitting either the console or the floor (or both) when the vessel was struck by the anomaly.

"Lieutenant Commander," Richard began as he and Thys re-emerged onto the bridge, looking at Nick, who was on the floor beside his console, as he spoke, "Situation update, please…"

Nick frowned for a few seconds as he continued to adjust something within his console through an exposed panel at the side before quickly getting to his feet and turning to face the approaching Captain, "Engineering reports that internal communications are still offline; the energy that anomaly was carrying blew out damn near every intercom system on the ship; until they've gotten mainpower online and resolved the issue the ship will need to rely on runners to ferry information…"

Richard would have laughed at the notion of using runners to ferry information about a one kilometre long ship if the situation weren't so serious, he took the information on-board with a nod, "Did they say anything about their attempts to bring main power back online?"

"Their last runner said that Chief Engineer Langley was having issues restarting the core…" Nick began, looking as if he was having trouble remembering all the details, "He said something about having to do a cold restart…"

"Anything else?" The Captain pressed as the main lights flickered for a moment, drawing his eyes upwards for a brief second, "Anything about weapons or shields? We're sitting ducks right now."

"Nothing about that," Nick replied quickly, "But from what little feedback I got from my console gives me reason to believe that the two Anti-Proton beam banks as well as a good portion of our broadside phaser arrays were fried by whatever hit us…I'll know more when we get main power back…"

Richard cursed inwardly at the news, the Anti-Proton banks had proven to be an invaluable offensive asset against damn near every foe the _Imperator_ had come across; and losing that much phaser array coverage was damned near crippling, "That'll be all Lieutenant Commander…"

With that said, Richard picked up his speed into a brisk walking pace, with Thys lagging behind for a second before he realised that the Captain was heading towards the turbolift, the Andorian cast a quick glance at the recovering bridge crew before joining Richard inside the turbolift.

"Where are we going?" The Commander asked as he stepped inside, the doors closing soundlessly behind him.

"Main Engineering," Lester replied quickly, both answering Thys' question and giving a destination to the turbolift, "Langley is going to need damn near every capable hand down there if he's planning on doing a hard restart; and last I checked we both graduated as Engineers first, bridge officers second…"

The turbolift took longer than usual to start moving, almost ten second longer; a quirk that Richard chalked up to the ship's power levels. Any typical crewman wouldn't notice exactly when the turbolift started moving, but Richard had been aboard starships almost his entire life; and even the minute sensation of moving turbolifts were something that one came to notice over that timescale.

The doors opened a few seconds later, revealing red-faced, puffy looking engineering Ensign who very likely would've thrown himself into the turbolift if both his Captain and the ship's First Officer hadn't been present.

"S-sir!" The ensign began, his words catching behind each exhausted breath that he took as he snapped off a tired salute, "Chi-ef Engin-eer Lang-ley," the man coughed a little, "R-requests your pre-sence in-"

Richard held up his hand to cut the man off, "We were just on our way, Ensign…" the Captain looked the Ensign over before placing a hand on his shoulder, "Take five minutes to catch your breath, son, dismissed."

The Ensign offered a breathless 'thank you' before limping over to a nearby wall and sliding down it until he was in a comfortable sitting position; Richard walked around the man with Thys in tow.

"We need to get main power back online _now_ ," Thys muttered as he cast a glance over his shoulder at the man, who was quickly swallowed by the darkness that stalked the corridors in-between the flashes of the emergency lighting, "The last thing we need is for people to be working themselves into a coma…"

The two turned a corner, "Agreed," Richard muttered before the door in-front of them slid open to reveal Main Engineering.

The two took care to avoid a series of engineers who were huddled around various open console ports and sections of the walls, often with sections of the walls' panels at their feet. After nearly a minute of fighting their way through the immense crowd of maintenance crews Richard and Thys arrived at the base of the vessel's war core, which dominated everything in the room, which was nearly four stories in height.

Chief Engineer Langley noticed them immediately.

"Captain, Commander," he greeted equally, his voice strained as he fought to be heard over the crowd in the room, "That you for joining us! We were just about to begin!"

"Where do you need us, Chief?" Richard asked as he looked around what he could see of the room.

"Over there!" Langley answered as he pointed towards a console surrounded by Ensigns on the floor above them, "A number of those Ensigns haven't performed a cold restart on a warp core this large…"

"I thought they covered this in the Academy?" Richard asked as he glanced towards the console, "Or am I just getting old now?"

Langley half smiled at the comment, though he kept his tone serious, "Not on cores this size, the largest they go in simulations now are the Sovereign-class Refits…But even those are only three-quarters the size of ours…"

"Remind me to file a complaint with the Academy," Richard smirked before Langley nodded them farewell and disappeared into the crowd of engineering staff; Lester turned to face his First Officer, "Let's get up there…"

* * *

 **[Tali'Zorah vas Neema] – [Crewman, Quarian Migrant Vessel** _ **Neema**_ **, Quarian Flotilla] – [Low Orbit of Freedom's Progress, Terminus Systems]** **\- [February 4th, 2185]**

Tali'Zorah crossed her arms as she gazed absent-mindedly out of the observation window of the small, outdated Turian frigate, the _Verricaw_ , that she'd been assigned for the mission; the planet beneath them was snow-covered but habitable by human standards. In a way it reminded her of Noveria, though hopefully this planet wouldn't host frequent blizzards and Rachni Queens; the Quarian shuddered at the memory of fighting the Rachni through the Peak 15 Research Facility.

"Tali'Zorah," came a voice from behind her, Tali turned on the spot before being met by the sight of Prazza standing by the door, "We've completed our initial scans of the planet," the mission's marine commander paused for a bit, as if he were lost for words, "You're going to want to see this…"

 _That_ caught Tali's attention, Prazza wasn't usually at a loss of words to describe a situation, in-fact the problem with Prazza tended to be more of the opposite; the commander was always one to speak his mind about a mission, good or bad. She quickly followed Prazza out of the room and into the bridge of the frigate, she glanced over the holographic displays as they flickered.

The pilot of the _Verricaw_ turned to face the two of them as they entered the bridge, he nodded respectfully at Tali as he began, "Tali'Zorah, we have completed our preliminary scans of the human colony…and uh…" The pilot trailed off as Tali's eyes widened in shock, "There's no human left on the planet…"

"That's…" Tali stammered in shock, as she recalled Freedom's Progress had a population of nearly one million people according to the last Alliance census, "That's _impossible_ …"

Tali looked over the scan of the planet; this was exactly the thing that Shepard would have jumped on if he were still alive, the Quarian felt a pang of sadness at the thought, even if it had been years since she last mourned the legendary man that had been Commander John Shepard. The pilot's next words pulled Tali out of her thoughts.

"There's…something else…" the pilot continued slowly, sounding uncertain of how to proceed, "We detected this in orbit…Took us about half an hour to even confirm if the damned thing was there…" he paused for a moment, "Almost as if it wasn't there one second and then there the next…Until a few minutes ago…"

Tali stepped forward and glanced over the system readouts from the object, frowning under her helmets at the numbers glaring back at her, "This doesn't make sense…" the _Verricaw_ 's sensors, even being as outdated as they were, had struggled to obtain a coherent reading of whatever the object was; so all Tali and the rest of the crew had to go on was the approximate length of the object – one kilometre, give or take a hundred meters – and some background energy emanating from it, "Is it a ship?"

"Damned if I know," the pilot replied quickly as he strained his eyes at the blurry holographic display of what the sensors had picked up, "But it doesn't look like any ship I've ever seen before if it is…"

Prazza spoke up from behind Tali as he glanced at the projection, "If the humans had a dreadnought in orbit of one of their colonies in the Terminus Systems, we'd sure as hell know about it, Ma'am…"

Tali nodded slowly, "Do we have a position on Veetor?" she asked, turning around to face Prazza again as the ship began to lower itself into the atmosphere of Freedom's Progress.

"We do," Prazza affirmed as he activated his omni-tool and displayed a holographic map of the colony, "He's here…" a red icon appeared on the map and pulsated for a few seconds, "There are a few possible landing zones for the ship," large blue diamonds appeared and pulsated at a trio of locations, from what Tali could tell, the closer that the landing zone was to Veetor's location, the more likely it was that the frigate would collide with some of the taller human structures.

"We'll go with that one," Tali said, indicating the landing zone farthest from Veetor's position, "We don't need to put the ship in danger for the sake of ten minutes less walking," she turned to face the pilot, who was expertly guiding the Turian frigate into the planet's atmosphere, "Can you get us to there?"

"You got i-" the pilot was halfway through saying before he stopped abruptly, his head shot in the direction of the readouts from the object as an alert appeared, "Uh…Ma'am?"

Tali followed the pilot's eyes towards the readout and she too froze, the energy readings from the object spiked so quickly that if she hadn't known any better, she'd have though it had been a bomb; and even then, with all her years of experience, she was clueless as what could have caused it – even the readings from Sovereign during the Battle of the Citadel paled in comparison to whatever had just powered up in orbit.

" _Keelah_ …Are the sensor's malfunctioning?" Tali asked, for the first time doubting the ship's maintenance crew instead of believing what her eyes were telling her.

"Not as far as I can tell, Ma'am," the pilot replied as he increased the angle of the frigate's descent, making the entire vessel shake noticeably as they progressed lower into the atmosphere.

Tali couldn't believe it, what she was seeing was impossible.

 _That makes two impossibilities today_ , she bitterly thought before turning to Prazza, "Change of plans," she said quickly as she selected the zone closest to Veetor's position, "We get in, get Veetor and get out of here before that ship – or whatever it is – gets a chance to make its mind up about whether or not it wants to shoot us out of the sky…"

"Understood," Prazza nodded in agreement before he hurried out of the bridge to ensure that his team was ready.

* * *

" _Warp core reset…complete_ ," the feminine voice of the _Imperator_ 's main computer reported, the voice accompanied by a series of electronic chirps, as the main lights in Engineering activated, causing Richard to sigh with relief as his eyes trailed the height of the core, " _Main power…Online_."

He leant forward on the railing and let out a low whistle as the nearby core started to purr loudly and shake the room slightly, signalling that the matter-anti-matter annihilation reaction had stabilized; as the seconds ticked by, each cluster of engineers and maintenance crew reported that their specific subsystem had come back online – be it deflector shields, replicators, transporters or impulse thrusters.

The declaration a few moments later that internal and external communications systems had been restored was met with a tired cheer from a group of sweat-drenched ensigns who were leaning on the walls by the exits to the room.

"Lester to the bridge," Richard quickly said as he both suppressed a smirk at the scene on the floor below him and activated his combadge, "Main power has been restored…"

" _That is agreeable news_ ," came the neutral voice of Poss in reply, " _Lieutenant Commander McDonald is attempting to run a diagnostic on the weapons systems as we speak_ …"

"Great to hear…" Richard quickly continued as he and Thys started to make their way from the bridge, "Poss, as soon as you are able I would like a detailed scan of that planet below us…"

" _Acknowledged, Captain_ ," Poss affirmed as Richard slid down a ladder before landing smoothly on the main deck of Main Engineering below, " _I will begin scanning the planet as soon as I am able to confirm that our encounter with the anomaly and subsequent power loss and LCARS crash did not corrupt any of our vital systems_ …"

"Understood, I'll be on the bridge shortly, Lester out," Richard concluded as he gave a quick nod of appreciation to Langley before leaving Main Engineering altogether.

Thys broke into a quick jog to pull level with the Captain as the doors shut behind them; they turned a series of successive corridors before arriving at the main turbolift cluster, which was half filled with people still surveying any damage which the anomaly had caused that the maintenance crews had not picked up on.

As the Captain and the First Officer passed by them, they offered nods of recognition and even a salute if their hands weren't full of scanners and other sorts of equipment. The two officers returned each gesture in kind, stopping at one point to inform a group of distressed-looking ensigns of the improving situation now that main power had been restored.

"What's our next move?" Thys asked quietly as the two men entered the turbolift, glancing back out through the doors at the busy crew outside before the doors shut.

"Bridge," Richard began as he informed the computer as to their desired destination, he turned to face Thys and clasped his hands behind his back, "Find out as much about this planet we're in orbit of as we can, then we'll make an informed decision from there…"

"Understood," Thys nodded before the turbolift doors opened again, revealing the bridge of the _Imperator_.

Richard left the turbolift first, looking around the bridge as he walked to the centre and turned to face the view-screen; thankfully it appeared that with thrusters restored, the ship's tumble had been quickly corrected. This now allowed Richard to look over the terrain of the planet below without having to deal with the nauseating rotation motion he'd had to endure the first time back in the ready room.

"Shields are currently down, Captain," Nick reported from his station as he turned to face the Captain, "I wouldn't recommend raising them until we get the issues with the EPS couplings sorted out…But we can raise them on your order, sir."

"Make it so, Mr McDonald; keep them idling, no need to overload the EPS couplings when we aren't in immediate danger," Richard nodded as he returned to his Captain's chair and sat down, "Bring us to Yellow Alert and begin scanning the system for any further anomalies as soon as we are able," a quick blast from the ship's klaxon and a slight dimming of the bridge lights signaled the upscaling of the ship-wide alert status, "What can you tell me about the state of our weapons?"

"About as badly as I'd feared," Nick replied with a sigh as he read off the report displayed on his screen, "Our starboard EPS conduits are totally fried, as are the ones powering the Anti-Proton banks…" he turned to face the Captain, "So in other words; we've got no phaser cover on our starboard side and the bulk of our forward-facing offensive weapons, save for the torpedos, are offline…"

"Can you repair them?" Richard asked before chewing slowly on the side of his cheek in thought.

"Not without dry-dock support," Nick answered simply, sounding frustrated at his report, "Sorry, Captain."

"That's alright, Lieutenant Commander," Richard nodded slowly at the news before he sat back in his seat and loosely clasped his hands on his lap, "Lieutenant," he turned his head in the direction of Poss, "What have you been able to determine about our computer systems, are we safe to resume normal operations?"

"As far as I am able to tell, Captain," Poss began as he looked away from the wall of text on his console, "Our systems remain uncompromised."

"Excellent news," Richard smiled with a nod, "Begin a scan of the system…"

The Vulcan nodded and turned around in his seat, terminating the program he was using to check the integrity of the ship's systems and quickly initiating a scan. Lester soon felt the entire ship hum beneath him as the deflector dish began scanning the planet beneath them, the process took less than twenty seconds.

"Scan complete," Poss announced as the _Imperator_ shifted its position and orientation slightly in order to take another scan, "The planet beneath us, designation NGC-5001 I, is a class M planet…Similar to Andoria in respect to atmospheric make-up and temperature…With two large moons and areas of considerable metal deposits close to the surface…"

"So definitely not the planet we were in orbit of less than an hour ago?" Richard asked as he sat forward in his chair.

"That would be a logical assumption," Poss agreed before he continued his report, "What's more interesting is that the planet appeared to be inhabited…"

Lester raised an eyebrow at the Vulcan's choice in words, " _Appeared_?"

"Sensors are detecting a sizeable metropolitan area consistent with a fledging, but steadily growing, colony…" Poss clarified as he entered a series of commands into his console, "By my estimates, this colony could have sustained a population of at least one million people."

"And you are using past-tenses _because_?" Richard asked as he motioned the Vulcan to get to the point.

"I am detecting less than forty people currently on and around the planet's surface…" Poss replied simply as the casual chatter on the bridge ground to a halt at the Vulcan's report.

" _Forty_?" Richard spluttered in bewilderment, his mouth agape for a few seconds as he gave the Lieutenant a dumbfounded look.

"Indeed," Poss nodded slowly, his neutral expression otherwise masking the concern in his voice.

Richard and Thys turned to face each other, both of them looking unnerved by the information as the reality of the news sunk in.

"There is…something else, Captain," Poss continued as the latest scan finished and the _Imperator_ began to move again, "I have detected a faint warp signature close to the planet…"

"Could it be survivors?" Richard asked as he turned his head back to face the Lieutenant, "Or other people from the colony?"

"That is unlikely, Captain," Poss added, his tone now one of wavering horror, unusually so for the Lieutenant, as the Vulcan put the pieces of the puzzle, as he saw them, together.

Richard frowned at that response, "How can you be certain?" He glanced at Thys again.

Poss was silent for a moment as he looked at his console's display again, taking the opportunity to confirm that he was correct in his conclusion before he passed it onto the Captain, "Because the warp pattern is the exact same as the one we've been chasing for the past three days…"

Richard let out a deep breath and tapped his clenched fists against the armrests, " _Borg_ ," the Captain muttered, his voice dripping with cold venom before he looked back at Poss, "Can you trace their destination?"

Poss shook his head, "I'm afraid not, Captain. The warp trail in question is almost six hours old…" The Vulcan continued as he redirected his attention back towards his console, "I am only able to detect its presence and signature but not much more than that…"

"New contact!" Nick shouted as his hands flew across his console controls, "Just appeared out of nowhere!"

Richard's head snapped towards the view-screen at Nick's announcement, "Track and magnify," at Richard's order, the _Imperator_ 's view-screen moved towards the new distant contact and began to slowly track it as it made its approach towards the planet, "What are we dealing with?"

"Looks like a shuttle, distance is about one hundredth of a light-second away" Nick reported as the view-screen display sharpened the image of the shuttlecraft, "Typical dimensions but…" the tactical officer paused for a moment, double checking the data he was getting from his sensors, "Extremely sub-par power output for a shuttlecraft of that size…Not much in the way of armament or armour…They don't appear to have detected us…" he turned to face the Captain, "They are on a direct course for what looks to be the main colony on the surface…"

" _Picking over a grave_ …" Richard muttered under his breath as he eyed the shuttlecraft with a growing interest, it seemed around the same size as the _Imperator_ 's own shuttlecraft but its design was entirely different; four engine mounts, that looked as if they could be independently adjusted, were attached to a central 'pod' which now-doubt contained the shuttle's passengers and cockpit.

"Why wasn't it detected?" Richard asked as he turned to face Poss, the Vulcan was silent for a moment before he started another scan.

"I do not believe they utilize the warp drive as a method of Faster-Than-Light travel…We would have detected their approach if that were the case…" he began as the _Imperator_ 's dish began scanning the area where the shuttle emerged from FTL, "However I am detecting what appears to be a region of 'dark energy' around the space which the shuttlecraft appeared in…And in the shuttle itself," he turned to face the Captain, "Interesting…"

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Richard asked as he stood up and walked over towards the Vulcan's station.

"There is another trail leading into the planet's atmosphere…" Poss announced as Richard began looking over his shoulder at the data, "It's angle and drift trajectory suggest that this was a craft, significantly larger than that shuttle, attempting to enter the atmosphere…"

Richard nodded, he stepped back from Poss' station and gave the Vulcan a pat on the shoulder, "Nice find, Lieutenant…" the Captain turned around, "Nick, see if you can track the source of that trail…Ignore the shuttle for now…"

The tactical officer nodded and looked back down at his console; his hands glided across the interface for a few seconds before he turned back to the Captain, "Got it!"

"Location?" Richard asked as he started to cross the distance between Poss and the Lieutenant Commander.

"Looks like it's already landed within the main colony…" Nick reported as he glanced at the readouts on his display, "Close to one of the life forms that Poss detected…" he glanced at Richard, who had stopped mid-way between the two officers and was looking at the view-screen, "Orders, sir?"

Richard clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the view-screen in thought; almost methodically, he turned to Poss, "You're certain that we cannot track the destination of that Borg warp signature?" the Vulcan glanced over his instruments before turning back to Lester and shaking his head; Richard nodded before turning back to the view-screen, chewing on his lower lip for several additional seconds before turning to Tlalve, "Helmsman Tlalve, take us within transporter range, I'll get an away team organised…Commander Ohozi, you have the con…"

As Tlalve turned around to plot a course, Richard started to walk towards the turbolift only to be stopped by Thys after a few steps, who gave him a concerned look.

"Captain, you aren't being serious about going down there are you?" Thys asked in a low whisper as Richard stopped to offer a smirk-accompanied glance in return.

"Well of course, Number One," Richard answered in kind as he clasped his hands behind his back, "I can't have you running around _another_ ice world again so soon, now can I?" he gestured towards the Captain's chair with a smirk, "And after what's happened I think you've earned a reprieve…"

Thys looked like he was going to argue with Lester but after a second of eye contact knew that the Captain ultimately wouldn't be dissuaded from his current position on the matter, and ultimate just gave Lester a small nod before walking back to the command chair and talking a seat as Lester entered the turbolift.

The Andorian looked at the Bolian helmsman after the turbolift doors had closed behind Richard, "Course laid in?" he asked as he sat back in his chair, leaning on his right armrest slightly as he waited for a response; which he got in the form of a nod from Tlalve, causing a smile to slide onto Thys' face, "Take us in…Half impulse…"

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: Thus concludes Chapter 2, and so begins the crossover proper. Freedom's Progress will be the first stop for the** _ **Imperator**_ **and her crew, I don't plan on changing any major things about the mission at this time but the sequence of events will certainly have changed with both the presence of the** _ **Imperator**_ **and the Borg; and the consequences for both parties will be far reaching.**

 **As always, please leave feedback about your thoughts or PM me.**

 **Until next time,**

 **CAS2109**


	4. Chapter 3 - Freedom's Progress

**["Freedom's Progress"] – [Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Low Orbit of NGC-5001-I, Other Side of the Rift]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

 _Captain's Report, Stardate: 87095.22. The Imperator has mostly recovered from the damage it sustained from contact with the anomaly over NGC-4487-II. While some weapons systems remain off-line, Chief Engineer Langley and the rest of his team have worked almost non-stop for the last few hours and have succeeded in restoring functionality to the warp core and shield systems – along with numerous other sub-systems which had been taken off-line._

 _Unfortunately, what is where the good news in regards to the vessel ends; we have absolutely no idea where we are. Our navigational computer is struggling to identify any stellar landmarks that the Imperator has on record, which either means we're on the other side of the galaxy or we're in an entirely new one altogether._

 _In order to answer this question, I am currently gathering together a small away team to investigate the surface of NCG-5001-I around what, according to initial sensor scans, appears to be a large uninhabited settlement on the surface._

 _I can only hope that we can recover information of use to the ship from this expedition so that soon my ship and my crew can return home. Or failing that, I can only hope that our distress signal does not fall on deaf ears…if the subspace transmission ever reaches StarFleet…_

* * *

 **[Tali'Zorah vas Neema] – [Crewman, Quarian Migrant Vessel** _ **Neema**_ **, Quarian Flotilla] – [Freedom's Progress, Terminus Systems]** **\- [February 4th, 2185]**

"This…This is unnerving everyone else, right?" asked one of Prazza's marines as the large Quarian team passed through another empty building, the eerie atmosphere starting to gnaw at them one by one.

"It's like everyone just got up and left in the middle of dinner," continued another marine as the team paused in the middle of one of the rooms, a kitchen by the looks of it, and looked around slowly, "Keelah, I don't like this…"

"Stay focused," Prazza muttered as he glared at the two marines, "The sooner we find Veetor'Nara, the sooner we leave."

Tali's eyes had been glued to her omni-tool for the past five minutes, partly to ensure that the team was taking the fastest route to Veetor, partly to avoid looking at the empty rooms that they were walking through, and partly to keep an eye on the power levels coming from the ship (as it was beyond question that it was a ship by this point) in orbit – which was now not only generating more power than a _city_ every _second_ , but had also moved into a much lower orbit compared to where it had been when it had first been detected by the _Verricaw_ 's sensors – not to mention she was detecting a weird repeating pattern emitting from the ship unlike anything she'd seen before.

"Hold here," Tali ordered as she walked over to a side door and activated the hacking module on her omni-tool, "This looks like a shortcut."

Prazza acknowledged her request with a small nod as he gathered his marines in the centre of the room and pulled out a small portable holo-computer before going over the mission parameters with them again for good measure.

Tali cracked the menial lock in no time at all as the holographic interface on the door switched from a dark red to a bright green, she quickly turned around to face the group of marines in the centre of the room and was about to suggest that they get moving again when a door slid open on the far side of the room, revealing three humans – one of whom was sporting heavy armour.

Prazza and his men snapped into action less than a heartbeat later, quickly advancing on the newcomers with their weapons raised; a gesture which the humans quickly returned.

 _Damn it, Prazza, we're here to get Veetor, not start a shootout_ , Tali's mind raced as she quickly moved into the centre of the two groups, "Prazza, you said you'd let me handle this!" she yelled as she tried to de-escalate the perilous situation, brushing Prazza's rifle towards the floor as she walked past him.

Prazza and Tali glared at each other for a moment before lowering his weapon slowly as Tali turned to face the new humans, when she faced the human group the quarrian quickly noticed that the human in the centre had also told his team to disarm at around the same time that Tali had. The quarrian looked at the human and froze as she double-checked, then triple checked the person she was looking at.

"Wait… _Shepard_?" Tali asked in bewilderment, blinking in both surprise and disbelief at the sight before her.

"I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives!" Prazza yelled in protest as he tried to move around her to give his team a clear shot.

" _Put those weapons down_!" Tali yelled at Prazza, her tone one of finality, which Prazza begrudgingly accepted as he lowered his assault rifle, "Shepard…" Tali continued as she turned back to face her former Commander, her words all over the place as she spoke, "Is that…You're _alive_?"

As Shepard opened his mouth to respond; Tali's mind noted that this made three 'impossible' things today. Although considering that this third impossibility came in the form of Commander John Shepard, Tali wasn't going to complain…

* * *

"Energise!" No sooner after Richard had uttered the order did the sight of the _Imperator_ 's transporter room fade, quickly replaced by the sight of snowflakes falling onto what looked like concrete.

The Captain turned on the spot quickly as the sensation of the transport wore off as the selection of crew that Richard had brought to serve as his away team, two human tactical officers and a Vulcan science officer, started to glance along the stone-like walls which towered above and around them, though they kept their phasers lowered.

Richard scanned the area as he turned, quickly realising that the colony was made up of primarily modular buildings, indicating this this colony was either fairly recent or distant from the founding race's homeworld. He pulled out his tricorder and began a scan of the materials which made up a nearby building, taking care to observe his surroundings as he waited on the tricorder to display the results.

The area that they were in resembled some form of loading bay in the centre of a built-up quarry, a large metal platform took up much of the centre of the area and connected much of the surrounding builds together with ramps and small stairways. The entire area was covered by a thin layer of snow and illuminated primarily by a large floodlight which loomed over the area from one corner; Richard squinted his eyes to catch a glimpse of what lay behind the floodlight through the glare but could only make out the faint shape of catwalks which carried on in the direction of what looked like the rest of the colony.

As Richard waited, he brushed his shoulder, somewhat regretting his decision to not change out of his bridge uniform for this away mission as the cold air started to bite at his hands; though it was a somewhat welcome change to the perfectly conditioned air aboard the _Imperator_ , which was usually kept at an average pressure and temperature to ensure that as much of the crew were comfortable as possible.

The Captain looked down as the scan finished, the displayed results causing Lester to raise an eyebrow in confusion; he tapped his combadge quickly, "Lester to _Imperator_."

A second passed before Thys' voice answered him, " _Imperator here, go ahead, Captain_ …"

"I've performed a scan of a nearby building in order to grasp what kind of materials the race which founded this colony use," Richard began as he looked back down at his tricorder, "It looks to be some kind of equivalent to steel, but there's a pattern in the waveform I don't quite recognise…" Richard sent the results of the scan and turned around to face his away team before he pointed in the direction of some large doors behind a cluster of storage crates as he started to walk towards it, "Could you have Lieutenant Commander Poss take a look at it?"

Another pause, "He's getting on it now, Captain," Thys replied before he paused, "There's something else you should know, Captain," the Commander paused, though not long enough to let Richard get a word in, "Poss ran another scan of the planet after you transported down to the surface; whoever was in that small vessel is a match to one signal on the planet – they aren't on StarFleet records – but the crew of that shuttle we detected…They are human…"

Richard paused at that as he looked over his shoulder, that didn't make sense; the shuttle didn't look like StarFleet issue and its power readings were far below what they should have been. Unless something else was going on here, Richard's mind jumped to several possibilities as he considered that maybe the Borg weren't the first ones to arrive at that planet.

"Keep me updated," Richard ordered as he glanced inside a nearby building, only to glance away as the lights flickered on and an empty dorm room stared back at him; he quickly moved towards the large door where his away team was waiting.

"What happened here, Captain?" one ensign asked as Lester approached, clearly unnerved by the experience as he gripped his phaser tighter, "This place is a ghost town, it's-"

"Like everyone was grabbed in their sleep," Richard finished as he looked back the way they'd come, the small courtyard was occupied by only a few buildings, with a ramp leading up towards a cluster of what looked to be a dozen or more buildings around the corner; and every single one looked empty.

"At least we know that the Borg didn't do this," another ensign, by the name of Darren O'Neill, spoke up as he looked around the area and up a flight of stairs that disappeared around a corner on the other side of the loading bay.

Richard looked at O'Neill, "How'd you figure that, Ensign?"

"Well for starters, Captain," O'Neill began as his lips curled upwards slightly, "I'm seeing a distinct lack of green,"

Richard chuckled under his breath at the Ensign's comment as he turned back towards the door, feeling glad that someone had taken it upon themselves to raise the spirits of the team.

"Captain," the Vulcan science officer spoke up for the first time since the transport as he pointed to a golden-coloured holographic display on the centre of the door, "I am unfamiliar with this interface, but I believe another device is required to interact with it...We may be unable to proceed…"

Richard normally wouldn't have had a problem with the Vulcan's request but the heavy burst of what sounded like gunfire from somewhere over the wall, quickly followed by the sight of what looked like drones flying overhead and firing at something – or someone - nearby, changed his mindset on the matter.

"Everyone back away from the door," Richard muttered as he ducked behind cover, his mostly black uniform - save for the golden-lined red strip which separated the whites of his command vest's shoulders (instead of the usual light grey that the rest of his crew wore on their shoulders) from the rest of dark grey and black uniform – providing little visual concealment when it was next to the snow-covered storage crates.

The Captain readied his phaser and set it to stun as he peeked over the lip of the crate, the two tactical ensigns quickly joining him as the gunfire started to get steadily closer.

"That definitely sounds like projectile fire," O'Neill chipped in as he glanced at the Vulcan behind them, his voice one of concern, "Our personal shields aren't rated to stop kinetics…"

"I wasn't exactly expecting to face such an outdated concept, Ensign," Richard muttered back through gritted teeth, making a mental note to bring the issue up with Engineering when he returned, as his combadge started to emit a garbled radio transmission in a melodic language he didn't quite understand; although the female alien's tone sounded frustrated.

Richard turned around to check their rear as a low pitched and deeply synthesized voice filled the plaza at around the same time a handful of armed individuals from a species he didn't immediately recognise ran into the area via the catwalks by the floodlight; drawing Richard's eyes back towards the direction of the voice as a large towering mech emerged from behind the cover of one of the buildings; dwarfing almost all of the available cover in sight on the main floor of the plaza. The Captain squinted at the mech's design before he locked eye contact with one of the female aliens, he didn't have long to pick up anything useful from her body language however as the mech opened fire.

And then all hell broke loose.

Richard's team abandoned their cover and ran towards the nearest building as the mech started shooting at them, momentarily ignoring the alien team as it started to bear down on the StarFleet away team. Lester flinched as his personal shields, being designed to shrug off energy blasts rather than hypersonic projectiles, failed pretty much immediately from the onslaught as bullets peppered the ground at his feet.

The Captain threw himself headfirst into the building as his away team followed him, narrowly missing the next burst from the mech as bullets impacted against the outside wall.

Several of the aliens ran into the building using a door on the other side of the room, though most of them seemed far too pre-occupied with the rampaging mech outside to notice Richard's small team hiding by the door. Richard's eyes widened in horror as this team of aliens were dispatched by the towering machine in a brutal fashion, with one of the aliens – presumably a female – was thrown to the side by a crushing blow from the mech's arm before being crushed by the mech's foot and finished off with a quick succession of shots to her upper body.

Richard ducked down again as his eyes trailed up a pair of stairs into the rest of the room, quickly spotting the same alien female he'd made eye contact with outside. The two looked at each other before the Captain started to creep along the wall towards her, hoping that the translation software had done a good enough job to let them briefly converse about a strategy to take that monster of a mech down.

"First Contact situation in the middle of a warzone," O'Neill muttered through gritted teeth from somewhere behind Lester as he peeked out of the window at the massacre outside.

"I see you didn't read the memo, Ensign," the other human ensign shot back as his eyes glanced from the mech towards a group of the aliens which it had pinned down in the building on the other side of the plaza, "The _Imperator_ gets _all_ of the interesting assignments."

"And here I thought that was the _Enterprise_ ," O'Neill commented dryly before he flinched as another burst of gunfire tore into the walls, shattering the window above him.

Richard could tell even from a distance that every alien in view was wearing the same full-body suit, although he wasn't sure if it was a combat suit or whether it was meant for a different purpose. What he could tell however was that each of the aliens' suits seemed to be somewhat personalised and covered in various fabrics of different colours; the female in front of him, for instance, had numerous drapes of a purple fabric wrapped around her suit and her helmet in a similar fashion to a veil.

Whether this symbolised her rank or social standing however within her society however, he couldn't be sure.

Richard pulled himself closer to the alien, pausing for a moment as another pair of screams accompanied another burst of gunfire from outside; as he approached Lester noticed that her wrist became encased in some form of holographic projection as the distinctly luminescent eyes of the alien widened as they darted from him to the device on her wrist.

"Don't happen to know any weak spots on that mech, do you?!" Richard yelled over the firefight outside, deciding to introduce himself once they'd eliminated the thing trying to kill them.

The alien was somewhat taken aback by his approach as she shifted in place for a moment, her eyes continuing to glance back and forth between Richard and the device on her wrist.

The alien spoke quickly; a light at the base of her helmet, where Richard guessed her mouth would be, flickering with each alien word she spoke. While it was somewhat odd that she understood what he had said, Richard was willing to chalk it up to the presence of those other humans that Thys said the Imperator had picked up.

The Captain muttered in frustration as he took out his tricorder and apologised as he removed his tricorder from his belt, he tapped on the scientific device as the alien beside him shifted backwards again, eyeing both the device and his phaser in confusion.

"What are tho-" the alien spoke, though a noticeable delay between the alien speaking in her native tongue and her words being translated into English; at the sound of the translated words, Richard looked back up at her, "You-you don't understand me?!" the alien spoke again, almost in bewilderment as another hail of bullets impacted the outside walls.

"Much better," Richard said finally as the translator quickly synched her words back into synch so that he barely noticed the delay, "Sorry about that..." he apologised again as he clipped his tricorder back onto his belt and glanced back outside at the rampaging mech as another group of aliens fired at it, "How do we take this thing down?"

"It's a YMIR mech," the alien began, obviously saving the questions for later as she looked out of the window, "You'll need to overload its shields first and then find a way to get past its heavy armour plating…" she trailed off for a moment as her eyes wandered back to the main door, "Just…Hurry Shepard! We're inside the loading docks." Richard's eyes diverted away from the alien as it was clear that she wasn't talking to him, "Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech! It's tearing Prazza and his squad apart!"

At the mention of this, Richard glanced back down at his phaser and adjusted the settings as the sound of gunfire continued; he paused for a moment in thought as the futility of the action hit him, if the firepower of an entire squad of these aliens couldn't put a dent in that YMIR mech's shielding then what hope did his phaser have of penetrating it?

"Get your squad into cover and I'll open the loading bay doors," the alien continued before turning back to face him, "I don't know who you are but I need your help to kill this heavy mech…" an explosion rang out from the loading bay outside, followed by screams of pain, "We're getting torn apart out there…"

The alien's eyes darted back towards the device on her wrist as a green light appeared on the display, she looked towards the door and tapped a series of the devices holographic buttons; moments later the door started to slide open and three new individuals entered the bay.

"Three new contacts!" came the voice of O'Neill from across the room, "Looks like the humans that the Commander was talking about…"

Richard nodded at the alien before he moved back along the inside of the building, keeping out of sight from the heavy mech outside as he tried to get a batter angle on the mech as it diverted its weapons towards the human team; who promptly threw themselves behind cover as a rocket flew over their heads.

"Captain!" yelled O'Neill over the sound of the shootout outside as he pointed his phaser towards the door, "We have to help them! They're getting torn apart out there!"

Richard nodded in agreement, "We'll need to take down the mech's shields and heavy armour first…" he looked at the members of his away team, "Suggestions?"

"Captain, I believe I have an idea," the Vulcan spoke up as he glanced out of the window, tricorder in hand, "The mech's shielding appears quite capable of stopping bullets and other projectile fire," he glanced at the tricorder, "But I am not seeing any defensive measures to deal with anything beyond that…"

Richard nodded slowly as his eyes snapped from the mech to the tricorder, the Vulcan's suggestion dawning on him, "So it will be ineffective against phasers?"

The Vulcan nodded before clipping his tricorder back onto his belt, "That would be the logical assumption, Captain…Though I am unsure about the resistance of its heavy armour plating…"

"Only one way to find out," O'Neill quipped as he moved out of cover slightly, pointing his phaser directly at the mech as it focused on one member of the other human team in particular.

He fired a moment later, the phaser beam hitting the YMIR mech in the back and caused it to stumble to one side as the impact from the beam scorched the surface of the once pristine white armour, leaving behind an ugly black scorch mark that smouldered a bright red in the centre. The YMIR mech spun around in O'Neill's direction and raised its left arm as it readied another rocket attack.

"Move!" Richard ordered as he pushed O'Neill out of the way as the mech fired a rocket in his direction, sending them both to the hard floor of the loading dock as the missile impacted the stone wall above the building.

"Let's go, Ensign," Richard yelled as he pulled O'Neill to his feet and in the direction of some nearby crates as the mech opened up with a rapid burst of fire from its other arm, cutting his team in two as it kept both the Vulcan and the other tactical officer pinned in the building.

Richard increased the setting on his phaser as he felt bullets impact the flimsy crate he was using as cover, he looked at O'Neill, "Switch your phaser to its cutting setting, we'll carve this thing up like a roast…On my mark," he ordered quickly as the crate started to buckle under the mech's unrelenting assault.

O'Neill nodded as another burst of gunfire from another building, presumably the work of the human team, drew the mech's attention away from Richard and his crew; giving him the opening he needed.

"Mark!" the Captain yelled as the two men burst out of cover and fired, the whine of their phasers catching the attention of the remaining aliens in the building as he felt their eyes slowly lock onto both him and O'Neill in both curiosity and awe. The phasers cut into the heavy armour of the YMIR mech, letting off sparks which inwardly collided with the mech's shields.

Richard steadied his aim as the mech turned around to face the two StarFleet officers, only to pause as its arms dropped to its side, the power couplings having been cut. The mech let out something reminiscent of a roar and charged the two officers; the action catching Richard completely off-guard as he threw himself to one side as the enormous mech drove up the centre between O'Neill and himself, catching the unfortunate Ensign with a strike from its flailing arms and throwing him into a pile of crates as his shields flared up.

Richard rolled over and groaned as he felt the wind get knocked out of him from the impact of hitting the floor, he looked up only to raise his phaser and fire at it again as the mech turned around and advanced on him, rapidly closing the distance as his eyes made out the distinct blue warps around its armour from all of the bullets hitting it.

Two additional phaser beams locked onto the mech and pushed it back slightly as the rest of Richard's team began to fire at the mech in order to buy time for their Captain. The mech slumped back as one of the beams struck it in the head, causing the red lights on its 'face' to short out as its head exploded in a fountain of sparks.

"Get back!" Richard heard a voice call from behind him as the mech fell to the ground, moments later he felt a pair of armoured hands drag him to his feet and pull him away from the mech a mere second before the entire thing exploded.

The Captain stumbled back a few steps glancing at O'Neill as the man pulled himself out of the pile of crates he'd been thrown into; taking a deep breath as the adrenaline in his system started to wear off, Richard turned to face the man who had pulled him out of danger.

The man he came to face was a little taller than Lester, looked considerably younger – easily in his 30s at the very most compared to Lester's mid-70s – and was eyeing him with a curious look through his inquisitive blue eyes.

"Captain Richard Lester," Richard began; breaking the silence as he offered the man his hand for a handshake, which he quickly accepted, "Thanks for the save."

The man nodded, "Commander Shepard," he gestured to the two humans who were lagging behind him slightly, "Operatives Jacob Taylor and Miranda Lawson…" Shepard crossed his arms before continuing, "I don't believe I'm familiar with that ship designation…"

Richard frowned as he looked over his shoulder at his away team, that did not bode well.

"You haven't?" Richard asked as he turned back to face the Commander, raising his eyebrows tentatively; Shepard shook his head again, causing Lester to let out a long sigh as he covered his mouth and thought over his options, " _Then it's worse than I'd feared_ …" he muttered, his tone one of defeat.

Shepard cocked his head to one side and opened his mouth to ask Richard another question before Miranda cut into the conversation, "Shepard, we have to find the Quarian," she urged, as she shot Richard a glance.

Shepard nodded at Miranda's statement before looking back at Richard, "I should go," he said quickly before his team turned on the spot and moved towards one of the elevated buildings at a brisk pace.

Richard called his away team over before walking quickly back towards the side of the building which the remaining aliens had retreated into; taking care to not step on any of the bodies of the fallen aliens.

Richard and the rest of his team entered the building; where he quickly spied the same female alien as before, she was crouched over the prone bodies of one of her comrades with the device in her hand activated.

"It would appear that the device she is using shares similar functionality to our tricorders," the Vulcan science officer pointed out as they entered the room, drawing gazes from all of the aliens who were still conscious, not least of all the woman Richard had spoken to as she quickly stood up and advanced on him.

"I have never…" she began as her eyes kept glancing between Richard's face and the phaser in his hand as she crossed the distance between them, " _Directed energy weapons_? I knew the Alliance was advanced but that?! Not even the Salarians…" the woman trailed off, " _How_?!"

"I'll answer all of your questions in a moment, Miss…" Richard answered quickly, holding his hands up defensively before realising that he didn't know the woman's name.

"Tali'Zorah vas Neema," the woman answered quickly as she nodded towards the Captain.

Richard nodded back, "Captain Richard Lester," he glanced over Tali's shoulder, "Do you need assistance with your wounded?"

Her head fell at the request, "I appreciate the offer but," Tali glanced towards the person she was just administrating aid to, "I just don't have the facilities here to properly treat them with the amount of suit breaches there is," Richard nodded grimly, postulating that the suits these aliens wore functioned more as protective enviro-suits than combat armour, "And even if I did there's no way I could get them treated in time…"

"We could help with that," Richard continued, "My ship is in orbit of the planet," Tali's posture perked up at that; but if she was surprised, Richard wasn't able to tell because of the polarised visor covering her face, "I could have them send medical teams down…"

"T-That would be…" Tali began as she wrung her hands together nervously as she went silent and looked at the floor for a few moments, "Thank you…" she said graciously, taking a deep breath as she looked up again, her tone genuine, "I wasn't expecting a human military captain to go so far out of his way to save a few Quarians…" she glanced over Richard's shoulder as she continued, her eyes lingering on the building that Shepard's team had walked over to, "It's good to see another human Captain who is like Shepard…At least he isn't always alone."

That series of remarks definitely gave Richard a cause for concern as he inwardly frowned, Tali must've noticed the change in the Captain's mood because she spoke up again a few moments later, "You're not with the Alliance…Are you?"

Richard shook his head, "I can't say I am, no…" he paused for a moment before activating his combadge, "Lester to _Imperator_. I need a large medical team beamed to the planet at my coordinates," Tali looked at him with interest as he waited on a reply.

" _Casualties?_ " came the voice of Commander Ohozi after a short delay, his tone one of concern.

"Not on the away team, Commander…" Richard replied quickly before he turned back to face Tali, "Anything the medical team should know before they depart?"

Tali blinked at the question, "O-our acid structure is dextro-amino based…" she said quickly, "And our immune systems are very weak…"

Richard nodded, inwardly noting that his postulation was correct as he reported the details to Thys before closing the channel.

Three seconds passed before the room was filled with shimmering blue distortions as a dozen medical officers beamed down, the effect alarming Tali as the Quarian took a hesitant step backwards, her eyes as wide as dinner plates as the officers quickly got to work treating the dazzled Quarians.

" _I-I have to go check on Veetor_ ," Tali muttered quickly before she dashed out of the room towards the building Shepard's team had entered a minute or so ago.

"I should inform you, Captain," the Vulcan began as he leaned in towards Lester's right ear, his voice low, "We will likely have attracted a lot of attention from this away mission alone, I would advise caution in the future…"

"Oh, definitely," Richard agreed with a quick nod as he walked over to a nearby chair and sat down as another group of medical officers beamed down in the centre of the loading dock and started to scan the bodies of the fallen for any survivors.

The Captain glanced back from the sight towards his away team, "I hope you enjoyed shore leave gentlemen," he quipped as he clasped his hands together on his lap, "It may be our last one for _quite_ a while…"

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: And so concludes Freedom's Progress. A little chaotic but what First Contact of this kind isn't? Things certainly won't be getting much better for the** ** _Imperator_** **and her crew from here on out, in no due part thanks to their sudden appearance, and in part due to a lovely shake-up to the Mass Effect 2 storyline I have planned in the next chapter.**

 **In terms of writing this fic, I'd also like to hear your thoughts on how you want the story-telling split. is the story more enjoyable to read when its mostly told from the point of view of the _Imperator_ 's crew? Or is it better when it has a more even split between Mass Effect and Star Trek PoVs?**

 **As always, please leave feedback about your thoughts or PM me - you thoughts are invaluable!**

 **Until next time,**

 **CAS2109**


	5. Chapter 4 - A Helping Hand

**["A Helping Hand"] – [Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Surface of NGC-5001-I, Other Side of the Rift]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

An uneasy silence had fallen on the loading docks since the arrival of the StarFleet medical teams, Richard had picked up on it fairly quickly as he tended to as many of the injured aliens (who called themselves Quarians according to one individual that Lester had treated) as his medical ability would allow. He chewed on his lower lip slowly as the cough-punctuated silence started to gnaw at him, something wasn't right.

He glanced up from the datapad he was reading, placing it down on the desk about halfway through a galactic encyclopaedia entry (known as the Codex) about omni-tools. The Captain had no idea he'd gotten from a basic outline of Quarian biology; to dextro-amino acids; to an outline of a race known as 'Turians'; to starship weaponry; to omni-tools, but it made for a fascinating, if very brief, read nonetheless.

He placed the datapad down on a nearby table and walked over to a nearby injured Quarian before unclipping both his tricorder and his T-cell stimulator and started to get to work on treating his next patient.

The Captain paused for a moment as he glanced at his moaning Quarian patient, adjusting the settings on his T-cell stimulator in the hopes of forcing the Quarian's immune system to start fighting back against the fever brought on by his wounds. The Codex article he'd read outlined up that the Quarian immune system was dangerously weak in comparison to a human's, hence why they were wearing their environmental-suits, but it was only now he saw the extent to which that was the truth; it was then that the Captain paused again, taking a moment to read over what the tricorder in his other hand was telling him.

Rather than fighting the infection, it was almost like the Quarian's immune system was trying to _adapt_ to it.

Lester's eyebrow arched upwards in fascination; this was _unusual_ by Federation standards to say the least, and would mean that none of their treatments would prove to be effective. He stood up before calling over a nearby medical officer and sharing his findings with her.

"Interesting," the officer, a Bajoran, muttered as she took the tricorder out of Richard's hands and scanned over it quickly, "This would explain why none of our usual treatments have worked…" she paused as she handed back the tricorder back to Richard, "We're dealing with a completely different form of immune system…"

"Any ideas?" The Captain asked as he clipped the tricorder back onto his belt and crossed his arms lightly, "We won't be able to stabilize them if we can't-"

Richard was cut off by a wheezing cough at his feet, his eyes shot ground-wards before he found himself crouching to support the green-clothed Quarian he'd been treating; his hands held the Quarian's shoulders as he tried to sit up, only to buckle and lie flat on his back again as he let out a pained cough.

" _The ship_ ," the Quarian wheezed in-between laboured breaths, looking Richard dead-in-the-eye as he spoke, "Our medical supplies. They're on our ship…"

"Where is your ship from here?" Richard asked slowly as the medical officer lifted the Quarian's head up before placing a neck-support underneath it.

"It's," the Quarian began as his right arm twitched towards his opposite wrist, causing the same kind of omni-tool that Tali had used earlier to appear, "It's…" His arm lifted off the ground before falling there again as the Quarian coughed loudly; he shook his head slowly in frustration, looking at the omni-tool on his wrist before returning his gaze to Lester, " _Ancestor's damn it_ …Go find Tali'Zorah, she'll be able to tell you…"

Richard nodded at the Quarian's statement, giving the alien a reassuring pat on the shoulder before he stood up and left the small building through the nearest door.

The chill of Freedom's Progress started to bite at the Captain's exposed face less than a second after he stepped outside, causing the veteran officer to let out a quick breath of air as he got his bearings.

His eyes quickly spotted Tali, who was helping another Quarian out of the building she'd ran towards at the abrupt end of their last conversation, and began briskly walking towards her; though his advance slowed when Shepard, Lawson and Taylor re-emerged from the same building looking concerned.

Tali picked up on the StarFleet Captain's gaze pretty quickly, saying a few words to the other Quarian before Lester stepped within earshot.

"M-more humans?" the other Quarian asked, his voice hesitant and jumpy as he looked around the loading dock, Lester could tell he'd been rattled by something, "H-how come they d-didn't find you?"

Lester looked at Tali, who gave a him a small, pleading shake of her head as she wordlessly urged the StarFleet Captain not to pry; he picked up on the cue and decided to take it up with her later, "We just got here…"

The Quarian looked at the ground, his hand trembling slightly as he turned back to face Tali, "I-I want to go now…" he mumbled nervously, his voice getting quieter as he continued to speak, "Before they come b-back…"

"Don't worry Veetor," Tali said reassuringly as she gave 'Veetor' a gentle look; though Richard's posture became more inquisitive, "We'll leave once my team gets back on their feet," she looked back at Lester, "Captain Lester here is helping with that a great deal…"

Veetor paused as he wrung his hands together, his eyes darting across the loading bay to and from the groups of injured Quarians, "W-what happened here?"

"We-" Tali began before her shoulders tensed up as she appeared to bite down on her tongue, not wanting to say anything which would upset the young Quarian, she looked at Richard for help with the explanation.

"To the best of my knowledge, the Quarian vessel encountered difficulties during its approach to the colony," Richard explained, not missing a beat as he clasped his hands behind his back, though he did hope that he got the pronunciation correct, "They suffered a number of casualties, which," Richard paused as he indicated towards the buildings staffed with StarFleet officers with a sharp nod, "My crew are currently dealing with…" he paused again as he let the words register with Veetor, "Hopefully there shouldn't be too much of a delay."

Richard offered a calm smile at Veetor as the Quarian seemed to accept the Captain's story, his eyes lingered on Lester's uniform for a few moments before he nodded weakly; Tali's shoulders fell back into a more comfortable position as he spoke, "O-okay," Veetor glanced at Tali, "C-could I-I s-sit down somewhere?"

Tali nodded quickly, leading Veetor towards some nearby chest-high crates with a gentle hold on his arm. Lester's eyes glanced towards Shepard and his team, who were either helping treat the Quarian marines or were conversing with members of his crew; the Captain's eyes narrowed as he spied Lawson pulling a few officers away from their patients to hold a conversation with them, Richard's gut told him to keep a careful eye on Lawson – there was something 'off' about her in a way that reminded Richard of his last encounter with Section 31. Richard crossed his arms gently as Tali returned a few seconds after she had left, having spoken a few more words of comfort to Veetor.

"Thank you for that," Tali said appreciatively as she returned, "I didn't want to say anything that would-"

"It's perfectly alright, ma'am," Richard said assuredly as he held his hands up.

"Please, call me Tali," the machinist chuckled lightly, "I'm starting to feel old with the amount of times the marines have called me that."

"Fair enough," Richard said with a curt nod, "Speaking of the marines," he glanced back in the direction of the building he'd emerged from a few minutes ago, "We'll need some of your medicine to help with their treatment; my officers don't have much experience in treating an immune system like yours…"

"O-of course," Tali said quickly, her tone of voice sounding like she was mentally kicking herself for neglecting to tell the Captain that detail, as she activated her omni-tool on her wrist before interacting with its haptic interface, "It's only a short walk, I'll take you there," the StarFleet Captain nodded in agreement at the offer, "I need to get some new CO2 scrubbers for Veetor anyway…"

"Lead the way."

Tali glanced over at Shepard again before gesturing for Lester to follow her.

* * *

 **[Tali'Zorah vas Neema] – [Crewman, Quarian Migrant Vessel** _ **Neema**_ **, Quarian Flotilla] – [Freedom's Progress, Terminus Systems]** **\- [February 4th, 2185]**

Tali glanced to her left at the man keeping pace with her, letting her curious eyes glance over his unfamiliar uniform as she tried to piece together exactly who he was.

She knew that he held the rank of Captain and that he wasn't part of the Alliance, however implausible that was, the Quarian mentally paused for a moment as she caught sight of four metal pips attached to the man's uniform at the base of his neck; she guessed that these symbolised his rank.

In terms of appearance however, the man definitely held the aura of experience and the look of someone very capable of commanding a starship.

"T-thank you again for offering your assistance, Captain," Tali said, breaking the silence as Richard glanced to his side and made eye contact with her.

"It's no problem, Ms Zorah," Richard said formally as the two turned a corner and walked through a deserted marketplace, "Though I do apologise about the circumstances; this isn't normally how the Federation prefers to make first contact."

"The Federation?" Tali asked as Richard paused for a few moments, scratching the thick moustache above his lips in thought; like the neatly combed-back hair on his head, the moustache was greying, though there was a presence of his natural black hair colour – a clear sign of the Captain's age.

"I take it you've never heard of the United Federation of Planets?" Richard asked in response, though it came across as more of a statement with his confused tone of voice.

Tali shook her head, "Never. We've met humans before, but they've been under the banner of the Alliance…"

The StarFleet Captain chewed on lip for a moment as he crossed his arms, "That is _odd_ ," he started walking again as he frowned, "The Federation has been around for nearly three hundred years," Tali blinked in surprise at the man's statement; that didn't make any sense! "Its name must've surely reached you by now, especially with the presence of hum-"

"D-did you say _three hundred_ years?" Tali asked, her shock at Lester's statement raising her voice to a near shout as she accidentally cut Richard off, " _Impossible_! Humans have barely been on the galactic scene for _thirty_!"

Tali's outburst gave the Captain a few moments of pause, remaining silent as he took in the information and lightly clasped his hands behind his back; the two of them stopped walking for the second time in less than a minute as they turned to face each other.

"What is the current Stardate?" Richard asked simply, eyeing the Quarian with concern at what she'd said.

The term 'Stardate' didn't fully register with Tali in her state of shock after what Richard had just dropped on her, though it further proved just how _alien_ the Captain beside her was; her mind raced to translate the Khelish date to the current Human date, "2185," she said quickly as she wrung her hands together in disbelief, "Somewhere close to the beginning of the human month, 'February'…"

The Captain went silent, Tali could see that his arms had tensed up for a moment at the news; her eyes wandered across his face as Richard chewed on his lip again before opening his mouth to speak before shutting it quickly as the words died in his mouth.

" _I see_ ," Richard said after the third attempt at trying to speak; Tali could tell that something was gnawing at the man, "It would seem…" the Captain trailed off as he stroked his chin a few times and looked at Tali, "It would seem that me and the rest of my crew are over two hundred years in the past…" Tali took a step back from the Captain as her hand hovered over her chest, she took a series of slow breaths in an attempt to calm herself down, "And nothing of what you just said lines up with my recollection of history," Richard let out a long sigh as his hand wandered up to his forehead and scratched it slowly, "Which can only mean we're in another timeline…"

Tali didn't respond to Richard's comments, her usually energetic nature overcome with a sense of stupefaction; another timeline?! _None of this made any sense_!

Richard seemed to notice the Quarian's confusion even with her face covered by her helmet, his features became more concerned as he put a steadying hand on Tali's shoulder.

"I apologise, Ms Zorah," he said quickly, as Tali blinked again in shock, "We may need to hurry this expedition up, I need to inform my crew about this unforeseen development…"

The machinist nodded quickly at this Captain's suggestion, quickly breaking eye contact as she walked briskly in-front of him; her mind was still in shock from the information, she had to tell Shepard about this! Tali's mind paused at that idea, she knew Shepard could still be trusted – the fact that he remembered the Geth data he'd given her two years ago served as proof of that – but the Cerberus company he kept certainly couldn't be trusted; not after what had happened on the _Idenna_.

"What happened here?" Richard asked as he switched the topic and broke the uneasy silence which had formed, Tali looked back up at him.

"Shepard and the _Cerberus_ operatives seem to think that it was the Collectors," the machinist answered quickly, her tone briefly becoming hostile as she uttered the word 'Cerberus', "They're race that supposedly resides beyond the Omega-4 Mass Relay…Most of the galaxy believe them to be a myth," Tali continued to explain, wagering that Richard had no idea what the Collectors were either, "I don't really have an opinion on it, but I'll trust Shepard's judgement…"

Richard nodded slowly at Tali's explanation, letting the Quarian continue to speak as the two walked into a large clearing; Tali glanced over at the Captain as the _Verricaw_ came into view.

* * *

 **[Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega]**

Richard let out a low whistle as the Quarian ship came into view; it certainly wasn't the prettiest ship he'd ever laid eyes on but it was fairly respectable nonetheless. The ship was anchored to the ground via three large landing legs and looked pretty crammed into the area which it had landed, with its reddish-grey hull standing out against the dull lines of pre-fab housing which surrounded it. His eyes ran over the general design of the vessel; picking up on its angular and utilitarian nature very quickly as his eyes glanced over the ship's sweeping 'wings', if Richard didn't know any better he'd have thought that it was an old pre-Federation Klingon vessel.

"Old ship?" Richard asked as they continued their approach towards the Quarian ship, his eyes glancing over some stress fractures along the ship's superstructure.

"It's a Turian frigate; Taetrus-class," Tali explained briefly as she wrung her hands together slowly; Lester nodded, remembering the Turians from his brief Codex reading earlier, "They've been decommissioned for about twenty years…"

"And you've still kept it running?" Richard asked, his tone carrying the Captain's feelings of both disbelief and respect, "Very impressive!"

"Thanks," Tali nodded, "She's not pretty, but she works," the Quarian led the StarFleet Captain around the ship to a lowered boarding ramp, "For the most part…The scrubbers have a tendency to fail every month or so…"

"I see," Richard murmured as he crossed his arms and glanced at the ramp as it started to open, "That's to be expected with vessels this old," he chewed on his lip for a moment in thought, "If you don't mind me asking, Tali…Why are you still operating in a ship this old?"

"Necessity," Tali answered simply as she looked over her shoulder, "My people would be extinct if it weren't for ships like this one; and compared to some of the ships back in the Fleet, it's considered quite new."

Richard's eyes darted back towards the Quarian as he blinked in surprise, "What?" he almost spluttered, "How old is 'old' to your people?"

"Some of the ships in the Flotilla date all the way back to our people's exile over three hundred years ago," Tali answered, sounding as if she'd answered the question many times before; it took her a few moments to notice that Lester had stopped at the bottom of the loading ramp.

" _Exile_?!" Richard exclaimed as Tali turned around on the spot; his tone restrained but masking clear outrage at the idea, "Explain."

The Quarian froze for a few moments at Richard's outburst, continuing to wring her hands together slowly as she looked at the floor; Richard could tell that she was hesitant to speak about the topic to him, "T-three hundred years ago, my people created an automated manual labour force called the Geth," the StarFleet Captain tensed at the notion but didn't make an attempt to interrupt Tali, "They were never intended to be self-aware…Barely having the intelligence of your average VI," Richard nodded slowly as he kept a careful gaze on Tali's eyes behind her tinted visor, "But as time went on, my people made changes to their software to let them perform more varied and complex tasks; bringing them closer and closer to true AI status…"

"So your people intentionally created an army of sentient robotic workers and sentenced them to an existence of servitude and-" Richard was halfway through suggesting before Tali noticeably tensed and cut him off quickly.

"Of course not!" she yelled, her voice having a more distorted electronic tone to it than normal as the Quarian snapped at Richard's suggestion, "It was a mistake! _Our_ mistake! By the time we realised they were sentient it was already too late!" Tali took a series of deep breaths as her tone grew sombre, "Our government panicked and tried to shut them down, the Geth rebelled and a war ensued and…And we lost…" her head once again returned to looking at the floor, "I don't know how many died; probably billions…" Tali's voice grew quieter still, "There are only seventeen million of us left now…"

The StarFleet Captain didn't say anything as Tali's words hung in the air for a few tense moments; the Quarian's eyes darted around the scene in-front of her rapidly as she started to wring her hands together again, "Keelah, I'm sorry," she said quickly as she took a step backwards, "I didn't mean to snap like that," the Quarian started to talk even faster as she tried to apologise, "Y-You had no way of knowing and you've been so helpful wi-"

"Tali, it's fine," Richard assured as he held up his hands, "My implication was out of line given the current circumstances."

Tali blinked a few times in surprise at his remark, "I-I wish the rest of the galaxy shared your opinion, Captain…" her eyes once again met Richard's "We're treated as second class citizens because of what happened three hundred years ago…Looked down upon as beggars and thieves…"

Lester chewed on his lip for a few moments before gesturing up at the outer hull of the ship above them, "The fact this ship is still operational disproves that cruel and unjust assertion, Miss Zorah…" he nodded towards the inside of the ship at the top of the loading ramp as Tali rubbed her arm slowly, "Now let's get those supplies for your marines…"

* * *

 _One Hour Later_

 _Captain's Report; Supplemental. The excursion to NGC-5001-I, hereon referred to as "Freedom's Progress", was more than eventful than I could have anticipated. Upon our arrival at the settlement site it became apparent that the colony had only recently been abandoned, though later evidence has led me to believe that the colony was in-fact attacked, however the presence of active mechanised colonial defences soon posed a threat to our away team._

 _While the away team sustained no casualties, a squad of a species previously unknown to the Federation, hereon referred to as "Quarians" (see attached file "QUAR-DOS-01" for details), suffered heavy casualties before the mech was destroyed by phaser fire._

 _Sidenote: It does not appear that the Quarians, nor anyone in their current technology bracket (see attached file "TBCT-ME") utilize phasers or any other energy based weapons, nor does it appear that their personal shields are rated to stop phaser blasts or energy equivalent. I can only postulate that this extends to their starship design as well due to the fact that the Imperator's scanners could not locate a warp-drive, let alone phaser banks, on board the Quarian vessel. End sidenote._

 _We have since offered our assistance to the Quarian wounded, though we were initially unable to medically treat them. With some help from the Quarian squad leader, Miss Tali'Zorah vas Neema, we were able to transport the Quarian medical supplies from their ship to the loading docks where we are treating the Quarian marines._

 _In terms of our initial objectives, we have been able to roughly discern our position in the Milky Way galaxy; but I feel that this discovery asks more questions than it answers. While we are still within the Milky Way galaxy, merely in another galactic arm, all of the evidence we have gathered, including the presence of another team of humans (completely independent of knowledge about the Federation) on the surface lead by Commander John Shepard who were also investigating the colony, points very decisively to the reality that we are in another timeline, if not another dimension altogether._

 _Sidenote: The majority of humans in this timeline/dimension are reportedly governed by a supranational power known as the Human Systems Alliance (see attached file "HSA-DOS-01" for details), which in-turn has a seat on the Citadel Council (see attached file "CC-DOS-01" for details); though I get the distinct impression that Shepard and his team do not work for the Alliance directly, instead working for a third party I only know as "Cerberus". While I have no indication about inter-species diplomatic relations in this galaxy, though I intend to research this matter thoroughly as soon as time allows, I picked up a distinct feeling of animosity which was directed towards Cerberus by the Quarians – though this feeling did not appear to be aimed at humans in general._

 _I have yet to inform the majority of the crew of the news in regards to our location, though much of the bridge staff have already been brought up to speed on what I know. I can only hope that the revelation that the news that the Imperator must return to Federation space after an event which makes the Voyager Incident look like an Academy exercise by comparison does not irreversibly fracture the crew's spirit; otherwise I fear that the worst is yet to come._

* * *

"I don't think I've ever heard someone say so much in one sitting," chimed a familiar voice from behind Lester as the Captain finished his report, "Especially not to themselves…"

The Captain smirked at the remark as he put the PADD in his hands down on a nearby table and turned to face the human in the doorway, "Ah, Commander Shepard, never heard you come in."

The Captain had repurposed the room which Veetor had formerly occupied into a small ground-side command centre in order to better coordinate the various away teams which were crawling over the colony for anything of use to them.

"Just thought I'd tell you that my team is ready to depart," Shepard began, as he looked around the room in silence for a few moments, "Thought I'd pass along my thanks in person before Lawson drags me back to the Illusive Man," Shepard crossed his arms and walked further inside the room, keeping his voice comparatively low as he continued; though he didn't hide his apparent distrust for the woman, "Be careful if you ever run into Cerberus again, Captain…" the Commander's warning sounded genuine as he stopped his approach a few meters from the Captain, "I saw the look she was giving you and your crew…Once you have Cerberus' attention, it is very hard to lose it again…"

Richard perked up at that, "Sounds like you aren't working with them out of personal choice."

Shepard nodded quickly as he closed the door behind him with a quick swipe across the haptic interface on his omni-tool, "That's one way of putting it," he glanced over his shoulder, "I've been off the grid for a few years now, things have changed. Humanity is under attack and the Alliance isn't in a position to deal with it."

"The Collectors?" Richard asked, though his remark was more of a statement.

Shepard nodded, "If what we've been able to recover from this colony is correct, it would appear so…"

"What can you tell me about them?" Richard asked as he stood up, briefly tugging down on his uniform before clasping his arms behind his back.

"What little you already know is far more than most of the galaxy knows," Shepard commented briefly, scratching his chin for a few moments, "Many believe them to be a myth…"

"I doubt that'll be the mindset for long, Commander," Richard quipped in response, "Myths don't abduct entire colonies…"

"The Council have swept bigger things under the rug," the Commander remarked bitterly with a shake of his head, "This has been reportedly going on for at least a year now; nothing'll change."

"I see," Lester murmured, somewhat concerned by Shepard's cynicism; he turned back to the desk briefly and picked up the PADD, clearing his throat before turning back towards Shepard, "I haven't been able to perfectly convert the file formats used by your omni-tool into ones used by our interfaces or vice-versa…" the Captain's apology was brief and to the point as he passed the datapad, which contained the aforementioned files, he'd picked up from one of the buildings outside, "So I'm afraid that all I'm able to offer both you and the rest of this galaxy right now is a barebones first contact package and the best wishes of the United Federation of Planets for peaceful relations and future cooperation…"

Shepard smiled at Richard, taking the datapad with one hand as he extended his free hand before he spoke, "As your actions today have no-doubt shown; many of those Quarians outside wouldn't be alive without your help."

"I'll ensure they get off-world in one piece," Richard assured with a nod as he grasped Shepard's hand and gave it a firm shake.

"I don't doubt that for a moment," Shepard nodded as he crossed his arms lightly again, "It's been a pleasure, Captain."

"Likewise, Commander," Richard agreed as he took a step back towards the desk, "I'll let you get back to your team."

Richard and Shepard exchanged curt nods before Shepard turned on his heels and went to leave the room, only to stop by the door and look over his shoulder at the StarFleet Captain as he sat down, "You'll need to give me a tour of that ship of yours sometime," he said off-handily as Richard looked up at him, "It's unlike anything I've ever heard of."

Lester smirked at the idea, "I'm sure that could be arranged," the Captain chuckled softly for a moment, "Until next time, Commander."

With a final nod, Shepard opened the door and left Richard alone in the room; the door shut behind him a few seconds after he'd disappeared from view. With a quite sigh, the Captain returned his attention to both his Captain's report and the PADDs containing the sum of his research into this timeline which both he and his crew now found themselves in.

He glanced over the PADD as the file conversion finished before glancing over the conversion error-filled "Codex" entry on the most defining characteristic of this timeline: the Mass Relay Network.

As Richard's eyes filtered through what important information he could decipher; it was clear the _Imperator_ held the advantage in weapons, shielding and FTL speed (up to a point) over the native races of this timeline. However, the Mass Relays had his ship beat for medium to long range voyages; they appeared to be able to transport ships instantly across distances of thousands of light years.

If a way could be found to allow the _Imperator_ to use the Mass Relays without incident, despite its lack of a Mass Effect Drive Core and Element Zero, it would seriously boost their tactical options in the long term.

The Captain ran his hand through his hair as he contemplated a few possibilities, noting down the few that stuck in his head before making a mental reminder to run them each past Tali and Chief Engineer Langley as soon as time allowed.

" _One step at a time_ …" Richard muttered to himself as he glanced back up at the large holographic screen above him, a voice at the back of his mind chimed in with a reminder: the Borg had arrived here first, and Richard had no idea where they'd gone.

* * *

 **[CODEX UPDATED]**

 **United Federation of Planets (Summary):**

 _The United Federation of Planets (abbreviated as UFP and commonly referred to as the Federation) is an interstellar federal republic, composed of planetary governments that agree to exist semi-autonomously under a single central government based on the principles of universal liberty, rights, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in peaceful cooperation, scientific development, space exploration and defensive purposes. It was founded on Earth during the local year 2161 CE by the Vulcans, Andorians, Humans and Tellarites and quickly grew in size and power._

 _The Federation is one of the most powerful interstellar states in known space, with its territory encompassing more than 8,000 light years across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants._

 _The total number of formal member worlds was over one hundred and fifty at the dawn of the 25th Century. The Federation's various member worlds join it willingly and are seen as equals in the Federation's democratic society. The Federation StarFleet (see below) was incorporated to maintain exploratory, scientific, diplomatic, and defence functions in the early days of the Federation._

 **StarFleet (Summary):**

 _StarFleet serves as the deep space exploratory and defence service of the United Federation of Planets. Its principal functions include; the advancement of Federation knowledge about the galaxy and its inhabitants, the advancement of Federation science and technology, the defence of the Federation, and the facilitation of Federation diplomacy._

 _As per its mandate of deep space exploration, its personnel are frequently brought into contact with cultures and sentient species whose existences were unknown to the Federation. StarFleet officers therefore are expected to act as official representatives of the Federation whenever these cases arise. StarFleet vessels were also frequently used to ferry ambassadors on diplomatic missions._

 **Odyssey-Class Star Cruiser:**

 _The Odyssey-class is the largest vessel ever created by Starfleet. Its massive size makes it very resilient, but its turn rate is reduced by the bulk of the vessel. The Odyssey-class's unique split saucer pylon reduces subspace wake at higher warp speeds. The vessel is designed as an extreme long-range vessel, and can operate for long periods of time away from support. Because of this, it is the most versatile cruiser ever developed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. It has been touted as the pinnacle of Federation starship design that will carry the Federation into a new generation of exploration._

 _The Odyssey-class Development Project was based in San Francisco Fleet Yards in Earth orbit._

 _The Odyssey-class is named in honour of the USS Odyssey (NCC-71832), which was destroyed in an encounter with the Dominion. The class is most often used as the flagship of a fleet or support for the most difficult of missions. It's expanded science laboratories allows it to take on extended missions that will take it far from a starbase or other Starfleet facilities. The Odyssey-class has ample room for cargo or passengers, and can easily be tapped for rescue missions or civilian evacuations in war zones._

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: Another chapter down, this one serving as more of a wind-down from the last mission; things, however, will not stay calm for long as with the departure of the Cerberus team it will only be a matter of time before all eyes are on the** ** _Imperator_** **.**

 **I don't plan on including Codex entries for any Mass Effect technology (unless it's OC), however I will try to keep them brief whenever they do appear as I don't feel that they add much to the story. That being said however, as all of the Star Trek side of things are OC, would youas readers prefer that I dedicate a chapter to either backstories or codex-like entries on them? Such as technical specs on the _Imperator_ or a background profile on Captain Lester, etc?**

 **As always, please leave feedback about the fic, be it errors you spot or just your general thoughts - your input is invaluable!**

 **Until next time,**

 **CAS2109**


	6. Chapter 5 - Imperator

**["Imperator"] – [John Shepard] – [Commander] – [Minuteman Station, Horsehead Nebula]** **\- [February 6th, 2185]**

Commander Shepard glanced around the dimly illuminated room which contained the communications link to the Illusive Man as the peculiar holographic cylinder of the Quantum Entanglement Communicator encased him once again. The scene in-front of the Commander flickered momentarily before the image of the shadowy Illusive Man appeared before him, complete with his chair and the cigarette being held in his hand.

"Shepard," The Illusive Man began; exhaling a breath of cigarette smoke and letting it hang in the air as he sat back in his chair, "Good work on Freedom's Progress. Your encounter with this 'Captain Lester' opens a new line of approach in the fight against the Reapers which I hadn't thought possible…" he glanced away from Shepard towards some unseen interface as he dabbed the cigarette in his hands against a nearby ash tray, "Operative Lawson's reports on the man and his ship are unexpected to say the least. You and I have different methods, but I certainly can't argue with your results."

Shepard inwardly frowned at the Illusive Man's analysis of Captain Lester, needless to say he was glad to have warned the Captain about Cerberus before he'd left, "If I hadn't been there," the Commander said after a brief pause as he crossed his arms, "I doubt I'd have believed it myself."

"Agreed," The Illusive Man concurred with a quick nod of his head as he rested his arms on his chair, "This encounter alone proves the multi-verse theory," he paused again as he flicked his wrist in the direction of another interface; which Shepard guessed displayed the OSD copy of Veetor's omni-tool data, "Not to mention you confirmed that the Collectors are behind the abductions."

Something about the man's tone perturbed Shepard; giving the Commander an impression that the Illusive Man was holding something back, he cocked his head to one side, "Why do I get the feeling that you knew about them already?"

"I had my suspicions but I needed proof," The Illusive Man continued, his tone simple, to put Shepard at ease, "The Collectors are enigmatic at best. They periodically travel to the Terminus Systems, looking to gather seemingly unimportant items or specimens. Usually in exchange for their technology," The man continued, locking his unnaturally blue eyes with Shepard as he gave a brief description of the Collectors, "When their transactions are complete, they disappear as quickly as they arrived, back beyond the unmapped Omega 4 relay. Until now, we've had no evidence of direct aggression by the Collectors."

"Why is the Omega 4 relay unmapped?" Shepard asked as he took a small step forwards, "What do we know about it?"

"Only that no ship passing through it has ever returned," the answer was once again simple but to the point, the Illusive Man glanced at another interface as he continued, "Our best guess is that the relay reacts differently to Collector vessels, allowing them safe passage. If they can manipulate relays, that's just further evidence of the connection with the Reapers."

Shepard nodded slowly, but there was still something missing, "Any ideas on why they've shifted their focus to humans?"

"If they're agents for the Reapers, it could be any number of reasons," The Illusive Man answered quickly, as his eyes drifted back to face Shepard, "Obviously, humanity played a huge role in Sovereign's destruction. That might have been enough to draw their attention," he trailed off for a few moments before rubbing his chin slowly as his expression darkened, "What really concerns me is how they'll react to the sudden appearance of Captain Lester and his ship."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the remark, "How so?"

"He's human, or very close to 'human', as is much of his crew according to Lawson's report," The Cerberus leader elaborated, lightly clasping his hands together as he continued, "That data packet he gave you also details a brief history of the Federation he answers to; long story short, his Federation wouldn't exist without humanity," Shepard could see the smirk that had formed on the Illusive Man's face when he'd revealed that piece of information, it was a smirk that left Shepard feeling a little uneasy, "Once this reaches the Council, it'll cause a storm which will likely throw the Alliance off-base. The Reapers may use this to have the Collectors strike our colonies again."

Shepard paused at the possibility, it certainly made sense: if the Alliance became tied up by a major controversy like this, it would be very easy to pick away at some of its more isolated colonies on the borders of the Terminus Systems and even the larger colonies within the Traverse, "If your right about this; then this is a war," Shepard said quickly as he made his mind up on the matter; they had to act quickly before the Collectors got an opening, "And if this is a war, I'll need an army. Or a really good team."

"I've already compiled a list of soldiers, scientists, and mercenaries," The Illusive Man said quickly, seemingly more than satisfied with Shepard's decision, "You'll get dossiers on the best of them. Finding them and convincing them to work with you could be challenging, but you're a natural leader," he let the remark hand in the air for a moment before he switched to another interface and began to glance over its contents, "I'll continue to track the Collectors. When they make their next appearance, I'll notify you and your team," his eyes returned to Shepard again, "Be ready."

"You worry about the Collectors," Shepard affirmed with an air of confidence, "I'll make sure my team's ready."

"Good," the Cerberus leader nodded as he lit another cigarette and took a long drag from it, "Three things before you go: First, head to Omega and find Mordin Solus. He's a brilliant salarian scientist. Our intelligence suggests he may know how to counteract the Collectors paralyzing seeker swarms."

"Sounds good," Shepard commented in agreement as he lowered his arms to his sides, "What else?"

"As far as we can tell, the _Imperator_ is no longer in orbit of Freedom's Progress dealing with the wounded quarians; and aside from an…incident…close to the Omega-Prime Relay, the ship's vanished completely," the beginning of the Illusive Man's statement was direct, as was the thinking behind it, "If you run across the vessel again, I'd appreciate it if you could gather some more information on the ship, it's crew and their motivations for being here; it may prove to be invaluable if Captain Lester can be convinced to help us in our fight against the Reapers."

Shepard inwardly frowned at the request, he hadn't expected the Illusive Man to chase down Lester so quickly; not wanting to let on his feelings on the matter however, the Commander nodded as he crossed his arms again, "If I make it there in time. What was the last thing?"

"I found a pilot I think you might like," The Illusive Man's unusually vague comment made Shepard raise an eyebrow, "I hear he's one of the best," the Illusive Man lifted a finger in the direction of the 'terminate link' option on his chair's interface as he took another drag from the cigarette, "Someone you can trust."

The Illusive Man's holographic representation disappeared, leaving Shepard once again alone in the room as the flickering cylinder of the QEC began to retract into the floor. Shepard scratched his mouth slowly in thought before a familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey, Commander," came of the voice of Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau as the Commander's head snapped in the pilot's direction in surprise, "Just like old times, huh?"

* * *

 **[Tali'Zorah vas Neema] – [Crewman, Quarian Migrant Vessel** _ **Neema**_ **, Quarian Flotilla] – [U.S.S.** **Archimedes,** **Freedom's Progress, Terminus Systems]** **\- [February 4th, 2185]**

Tali's eyes darted around the small, yet surprisingly spacious interior of the 'U.S.S. _Archimedes_ ' with barely controlled movements as she wrung her hands together. The 'Danube-Runabout', as Lester had called the class of vessel, was absolutely incredible by _galactic_ standards - let alone quarian.

The cockpit of the _Archimedes_ contained four chairs, one of which was occupied by Captain Lester and the rest empty save for an officer who was manning the station almost directly behind Lester, two of which faced the large open portholes at the front of the runabout; Tali neglected to sit down however, as both she and Prazza – who was now back on his feet after a remarkably short period of time thanks to the StarFleet medical teams and had insisted on accompanying Tali for 'reasons of security', despite the scalleding he'd received for disobeying orders – hovered around the centre of the room by what appeared to be a control pylon which contained another console.

Tali's eyes occasionally glanced in Richard's direction as the Captain's hands wandered over the cluttered interface in-front of him with ease, but for the most part she continued to gawk at the tech contained within the runabout. Tali was so engrossed by the tech on-show in-front of her that she didn't register that the runabout had taken off until after they'd entered the upper atmosphere of the planet; a fact which led to the undeniable conclusion that StarFleet had to have inertial dampeners which were hundreds of years ahead of Citadel technology at the very least.

" _This is insane_ ," Prazza muttered under his breath over the quarians' private communications channel, "I don't even know where to start with all this."

Tali didn't respond immediately as her eyes ran over another nearby display; though with the unusual formatting of the date, she couldn't piece together what everything meant, "I-I know what you mean…"

Part of Tali was now especially glad that she'd refused the Captain's offer to have them 'transported' to his ship, though she'd declined more out of uncertainty of the technology than out of mistrust of the Captain, as now she had some notion about what to expect when she arrived.

" _I don't know how you're going to be able to help them with their problem_ ," Prazza muttered again as he walked to one of the empty consoles before looking at the display for a few moments, " _This technology is way over even your head, Tali'Zorah_ …"

Tali's head snapped in his direction at the marine's comment, though her snappy rebuttal to his comment died in her throat as the quarian's eyes picked out a distinctively elegant shape through the porthole beside Prazza. The marine slowly followed her stunned gaze before both quarians found themselves facing the rapidly growing shape in disbelief as the glint from the local star reflected off the white hull plating, emblazoning it against the deep blackness of space behind it with a majestic glare.

"Keelah…" was the only sound to escape from Tali's mouth as the enormous Federation starship loomed above the tiny runabout; the suddenness of the vessel's appearance causing Tali to almost stumble over her own feet as she rushed to the portholes beside the command consoles.

Tali's eyes widened behind her helmet as they wandered over the hull of rapidly approaching starship in a daze, its design was unlike anything she'd ever seen – and it certainly didn't look like any human designed ship she'd ever seen. The curvature of the vessel's hull reminded her of Asari starships in a way, but that was where the similarities with anything in Council space ended.

The runabout was approaching the vessel from below; giving her a clear view of what Tali assumed to be the starship's dorsal section; she wasn't able to identify several key features immediately, though such features became quickly apparent as the runabout manoeuvred along a trajectory which would take them around what she guessed was one of the ship's two engine nacelles.

From what Tali could make out, the vessel was composed of two sections; a large curved chevron-shaped primary section and a larger, bulbous shaped lower section which tapered off elegantly towards the aft of the vessel. Both sections were joined by a curiously designed double-neck with a tapered split in the middle; Tali's eyes also noticed another curiosity as the runabout got even closer to the ship in the form of the number of windows she could see.

Most Citadel military vessels often forewent the excessive inclusion of windows into their design, mostly in part to them being weaknesses in the ship's structure which could pose a threat to the crew in combat. It was common knowledge that human vessels tended to have more windows on-board when compared to starships designed by other species; but from what Tali understood from her time on the Normandy, those windows served more of a recruitment role than a functional one. With that thought in mind, the quarian returned her gaze to ship's hull and began picking out dozens upon dozens – even potentially hundreds – of windows as well as numerous exterior floodlights which illuminated text on the sides of various parts on the hull, she blinked in surprise at the peculiar design choices, which reminded her more of a civilian luxury liner than a warship, before another manoeuvre sent the entire ship flying out of her view for a few moments.

Tali leaned forward on the console as she scrambled to get a better view of the ship as Lester began to turn the runabout around in a slow arc before lining it up for a pass between the ship's two large, elongated nacelles. There was a short pause in the Captain's actions to her left before she heard a light cough beside her.

Tali jumped back from the console in surprise, quickly realising that she'd accidentally blocked Captain Lester's access to his control console. She took a further hesitant step back as she wrung her hands nervously and glanced between Lester and Prazza, who was still staring out of the window at the ship as it came back into view.

"If you two are finished gawking at my ship," the StarFleet Captain chuckled with a smile as he looked at the two quarians, his words snapping Prazza out of his daze, "I'd like to take us aboard…"

Tali nodded quickly, barely managing to contain her excitement as the gleaming hull of Lester's ship came back into view.

" _Runabout Archimedes_ ," came a smooth feminine voice, causing Tali to take another step back from the Captain as the voice chimed through the oddly-shaped, outline-like badge on Lester's chest (which she guessed was the outline of the insignia of 'StarFleet'). " _You are cleared for landing in main shuttlebay one_."

Richard wordlessly acknowledged the message, once again gliding his hands over the interface in-front of him as the runabout swerved again to line up with what looked like a massive hanger door on the aft of the primary section. Tali met Richard's eyes for a moment as the Captain briefly glanced in her direction before returning his full attention to flying the runabout as he eased the small craft between the two long nacelles of the Federation starship.

Tali's eyes drifted along the nacelles, taking in intricate details of their design as the runabout passed between them. A sudden bright flash from the primary section in front of them caused Tali's eyes to quickly snap in its direction just in time to see the hanger door start to open, revealing the complex multi-levelled hanger bay that it contained.

" _Okay, Archimedes_ ," the voice said again as the runabout closed most of the distance separating it from the hanger bay as Tali looked out of the porthole again in awe, " _We are bringing you in_."

Tali jumped back from the porthole as a beam of light-blue energy shot out from within the hanger bay itself before wrapping around the runabout, causing the runabout to jerk in place for a moment, the sensation set a brief wave of panic through Tali and Prazza – though the Captain didn't seem to notice it – before a calming glance from Lester put her mind at ease, before it was gently pulled towards the lower decks of the hanger bay.

Tali took a deep breath as the runabout was eased slowly towards a large yellow-outline platform on the lower deck of the hanger bay; her eyes indecisively flickering between the busy hanger bay, the strange sounding beam that was moving the runabout, and the Captain. A quick glance at her own vitals revealed that her heart rate had – rather unsurprisingly – spiked, she glanced at Prazza's vital signs and noticed he was more or less the same as the two quarians shared a disbelieving look at what they were seeing.

Another jolt rocked the runabout as the small craft was anchored to the deck and the beam disengaged, leaving the control room of the craft in a brief period of uncomfortable silence.

" _Archimedes, you are secured_ ," the voice said once again as Lester stood up, looked at the quarains and smirking before he gestured towards the small exit door behind Tali and he walked towards it, " _Welcome aboard, Captain_."

Tali and Prazza, noticeably silent, sheepishly followed the noticeably amused StarFleet Captain as he opened the door with a few taps on the interface beside it. As the door opened with a dull _whirring_ sound, revealing the large hanger bay as the large bay doors began to close again, Lester glanced over his shoulder at the quarians as they became more dumbstruck by the second.

From what Tali could see, the hanger bay was a mix of black and grey, with various coloured lines running along the walls and floor. The walls were made up from segmented grey panelling which was sleek and smooth in appearance and the shining black floor looked to be as reflective as an expensive mirror.

"Miss Zorah, Mister Nalon…" Lester began as he stepped onto the matte-black coloured deck of the hanger bay, standing on top of one of the lights which ran towards the open hanger bay door and flashed in sequence with countless others as the large hanger door began to close behind him, "If you'd like to follow me to Deflector Control…"

The words shook Tali out of her daze, "Yes-o-of-co-course…" she mumbled quickly, stumbing over her limited choice in words as she blinked a few times, "Lead-the-w-way," she wrung her hands together quickly and followed the Captain out of the runabout before turning on the spot to look over the entire hanger bay, "Keelah…" was the only sound to leave her mouth as the base of her helmet stopped her jaw from hitting the floor in shock.

Her eyes returned to the Captain, who was starting to walk towards a nearby door; both she and Prazza wasted little time following him, though Tali's eyes were momentarily drawn to a few lines of large writing which was emblazoned on the wall of the hanger bay in bold white litters. As the writing was clearly in English, again reminding Tali of Lester's bizarre origins, it took less than a second for her translator implants to translate the words into Khelish.

 **USS IMPERATOR**

 **NX-97701**

 **ODYSSEY CLASS**

Tali shook her head slowly as her mind once again ground to a halt; she followed Lester towards the door with a growing part of her beginning to wonder if this was the one time Prazza was right…  
Was she in way over her head?

* * *

 **[Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [Shuttlebay One, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **, Low Orbit of Freedom's Progress]** **\- [February 4th, 2410]**

Richard glanced over his shoulder again as he gave his uniform a sharp downwards tug as the door in-front of him opened with a barely audible _hiss_ , taking a moment to ensure that the quarians were still following him before walking into the corridor beyond. He flexed his hands in fingers as he walked, clenching and unclenching his fists as the bitter cold of Freedom's Progress quickly began to wear off in the temperate conditions of the _Imperator_.

Relishing the return of feeling to his hands and content that the quarians were following him closely, Lester continued to walk in the direction of the nearest turbolift; tapping his combadge as he picked up his speed into a brisk walk.

"Lester to Commander Langley," the Captain began as he rounded a corner, "Meet me in Deflector Control…"

A brief pause answered him before Langley replied, " _Aye, Captain. Langley out_."

Richard's combadge chirped as the channel between him and Langley closed; giving the Captain a moment to collect his thoughts before he arrived at the turbolift.

"This ship is _incredible_!" Tali's voice drifted down the corridor from behind Lester, the awe in her voice was unmistakable; which made the StarFleet Captain chuckle under his breath as the two quarians approached, "I've never see-"

The quarian trailed off as she caught on that Richard was looking at her, "Uh…S-sorry, Captain…" the quarian looked at the ground, embarrassment clear in her voice as she continued to ring her hands together, "I was-"

"Showing an interest in my ship," Richard said with a smirk as the turbolift doors opened behind him, "That's nothing to apologise about," Lester and the two quarians entered the turbolift quickly, "Deflector Control."

The doors promptly shut behind them and the turbolift began moving, though thanks to its inertial dampeners the occupants would be none-the-wiser.

"H-how fast are we going?" Prazza asked slowly as he broke his long silence and nodded at the closed turbolift door as rapid white flashes permeated the seal.

The opening turbolift door answered the question for him as Lester exited the turbolift and walked straight into Deflector Control.

"I-uh…" Prazza murmured in shock, seemingly echoing the feelings of Tali, "Oh…Keelah" Prazza quickly descended back into silence as he looked the turbolift over in alarm before looking at Tali in alarm and following the StarFleet Captain into the room beyond.

The _Imperator_ 's deflector control was typically of an Odyssey-class starship, which in itself was atypical of Federation starhips as a whole. Due to the large sizes of the deflector dishes found on Odyssey-classes, the deflector had to be directly linked to the secondary computer core; this gave the deflector increased capabilities and operating efficiency.

The room itself was moderately large, semi-circular room with frequent alcoves in the walls which were filled with work stations and consoles; substantially different in design to those found aboard other Federation starships. At the centre of the room was a slightly raised platform which contained the majority of the deflector dish's key control systems; Chief Engineer Langley was already waiting here for the Captain's arrival.

"Commander Langley," Richard greeted with a curt nod as Langley dropped the PADD he was reading to his side.

"Captain Lester," Langley replied as he returned the gesture, "Good to see you're back in once piece," he turned to look at Tali and Prazza and offered a warm smile, "I take it these are our quarian visitors?"

Richard nodded at the question before turning to face the quarians and gesturing towards Langley, "Tali'Zorah, Prazza'Nalon; allow me to introduce Commander Jason Langley, my Chief Engineer."

"P-please to meet you," Tali said with a polite nod as her body posture relaxed slightly.

"Feeling's mutual," Langley replied before turning to Lester and passing him the PADD, "Interesting idea, Captain. Though I can't say I approve of using the _Imperator_ 's deflector dish as a turbo-booster, if you'll forgive the crude analogy."

Richard rubbed his forehead, "I'd say it's worth a shot."

" _Captain_ ," Langley interjected with a stern tone, "You and me both know that if these figures are correct then these relays transport material at greater than warp ten…" he gestured to the floor and the ceiling, "Our hull's not rated for that…" he crossed his arms and took a step backwards, "We could tear the ship apart if we tried to use one while the warp drive is engaged; never mind what would happen to the dish," he pointed at the PADD again, "Even if we used this fanciful little element you discovered on the surface."

Tali perked up at Langley's comment as a realisation dawned on her, she turned to face Lester, " _That's_ why you wanted the signature data for element zero!"

Richard nodded slowly as Langley raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Element zero mass effect drives allow ships to interface with mass relays safely," Tali elaborated, "That's why they serve as our primary means of FTL-travel and not your…" Tali trailed off for a moment as she recalled the term Langley had used, "Warp drive…" she rubbed her visor slowly as Richard spoke up.

"Precisely," he nodded, "If we use the deflector dish to mimic the output signatures of an element zero mass effect drive core, we should be able to pass through the relay without incident."

"See…" Langley murmured with a slight smirk as he scrunched his face up in disagreement and cocked his head in Lester's direction, "You used 'should' there…"

"That's because you're the expert on this ship," Lester defended as he raised his hands and chuckled, he glanced at Tali, "Could you give Miss Zorah temporary access to the deflector emitters and see if it's possible? I'll leave the final say in the matter up to you."

Langley looked at Richard for a moment longer before his eyes jumped in Tali's direction, "Alright," he sighed as he nodded in the direction of the emitter controls, "Follow me."

"I'll be on the bridge," Lester said with a curt nod at Langley before he turned to face Prazza, "Care to join me?"

The quarian marine's head twitched for a moment, almost as if he was shocked by the question as Tali blinked at Langley before nearly jumping after him.

"I…" Prazza began as the two of them glanced at Tali, who was already scouring over the console like a child who'd been given a really expensive present, "I guess so…"

"This way please," Richard said as he turned in the direction of the turbolift, passing an amused glance at the overly-excited quartian at the emitter control console before entering the turbolift with Prazza in tow, "Bridge."

* * *

Lester strode onto the bridge of the _Imperator_ , glancing around the room as Thys stood up from the captain's chair and walked across the bridge to greet them. Ohozi's sudden appearance caused Prazza to stop in his tracks and look at Lester with what the Captain assumed to be a quizzical look before the quarian's eyes panned over the bridge in its entirety.

"By the Ancestors," Prazza muttered before he turned to face Lester again, "How many species are on-board this ship?"

"About forty," Ricard answered matter-of-factly as he clasped his hands behind his back, he noticed that Prazza took a hesitant step backwards at the answer, "The Federation encompasses a great number of species…"

"Doesn't that cause…" Prazza paused for a moment as he looked at Thys, " _Issues_? It isn't common practice for military vessels in Citadel Space to have multi-species crews…"

Richard cracked a smile at that, "We are all citizens of the Federation, inter-species tension has been buried for centuries," Lester's answer caused Prazza to sway on his feet for a moment, clearly lost in thought at the prospect.

"Speak for yourself, pink-skin," Thys interjected, smiling dangerously at the Captain as Lester returned a quiet laugh.

"Prazza'Nalon," Richard continued with a smirk at his first officer's remark, "This is my first officer, Commander Thys Ohozi."

"Mister Nalon," Thys nodded as he crossed his arms, noticing the look that Prazza was giving his antennae, "Welcome on-board the _Imperator_."

"T-thank you Commander," Prazza replied after a short delay, the quarian took a step back and blinked a few times in rapid succession.

Thys, content with leaving the conversation at this point, turned to face Lester, "The bridge is yours, Captain."

"The bridge is mine, Number One," Richard said with a nod before turning to walk towards his chair as Ohozi back towards the captain's chair before sitting down in the chair beside it; the Captain glanced at Prazza, "Give me a moment, I have an announcement to make…"

Prazza nodded at Richard's request, choosing to loiter by the turbolift door under the watchful eye of a nearby security officer as the Captain returned to his chair and sat down.

Lester clasped his hands on his lap as he sat down and looked at the view-screen, giving Nick and Poss a calm nod as he thought over the situation his ship and crew now found themselves in. It was obvious that they had to relocate to another system very quickly, after all they were sitting in orbit of a colony which had clearly been attacked by some kind of hostile force – a hostile force which the _Imperator_ could very well be accused of being if they weren't careful.

By Richard's estimates, they had been in orbit of the planet for around three hours, more than enough time for a curious party to organise and investigate why a colony the size of Freedom's Progress had gone dark. Or even worse; pirates looking for some easy pickings.

Richard tapped the touch sensitive panel on his chair's armrest and opened a ship-wide channel.

"Attention, crew; this is the Captain speaking," Lester began, drawing glances from a few bridge officers as he sat back in his chair and continued, "I'll try to keep this short and I won't sugar-coat it. We are, as most of you are well aware by this point, no longer in orbit around NGC-4487-II. But it is clear to me from what we have already uncovered that we are not in Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Borg, Cardassian or Dominion space. We are quite literally in uncharted territory," Lester turned his head to look at Prazza, who was watching him intently, "But we are not alone, for we have already found allies."

Prazza blinked before looking around the bridge as several officers glanced at him, he returned his eyes to Lester as he continued, "And while some will no doubt seek to be our enemies, I know that this crew are more than capable of overcoming such hostilities in battle; should the need arise. From what we can tell, we've been transported to the late 22nd Century, and there is no trace that the Federation even exists. So make no mistake: we are in a very different galaxy from the one we were in a few short hours ago," The StarFleet Captain paused for a moment as he noted the startled expression on the faces of some of the more-junior bridge officers – many of whom Lester knew had been itching to get back to SpaceDock for shore leave, "I know this may seem bleak, and I won't lie to you; the challenge which confronts us is no small one," Lester's tone was adamant and confident as he spoke, his attitude dispelling most of the immediate shock to the news on the bridge and replacing it with the typical respect that the crew had for their Captain, "But StarFleet is not known for overcoming easy obstacles; StarFleet is known for looking the impossible in the eye and daring itself to overcome that impossibility. And that is exactly what we are going to do," Richard's head turned to face Thys as the Andorian gave him an approving nod, "Lester out."

As Lester's words settled in the air the mood on the bridge returned to its earlier confidence, with many of the officers quickly turning their attention back to their stations as some talked amongst each other.

Thys looked over the bridge slowly before he and the Captain shared a moment of eye contact, "The crew's behind you, Captain," The Andorian said with a flicker of a smile, "One hundred percent."

Richard nodded at Ohozi's statement as he returned his eyes to the view-screen for a moment, "Let's wrap up our operations here…The sooner we get the rest of the quarians," he nodded over Thys' shoulder in Prazza's direction, "Off-world, the better."

Thys furrowed his brow slightly, "Was there another problem on the planet's surface?"

Richard was silent for a moment as he shook his head, "I fear if we remain here much longer, a problem will soon find us…"

* * *

 **[CODEX UPDATED]**

 **U.S.S. _Imperator_ , Technical Overview:**

Overview:-

Starship Class :: Odyssey

Starship Type :: Explorer & Battleship

Starship Registry :: U.S.S. _IMPERATOR_ , NX-97701 (Registration Changed from NX-97000 Circa. Stardate: 86221 - Associated Information Classified)

Starship Status :: Missing in Action

Other UFP Starships of this Class ::

U.S.S. _Enterprise (NCC-1701-F)_

U.S.S. _Odyssey (NX-97000)_

U.S.S. _Houston (NCC-97284)_

U.S.S. _Dennison (NCC-97451)_

Commanding Officer :: Richard J. Lester (Captain)

First Officer :: Thys Ohozi (Commander)

Chief Engineering Officer :: Jason Langley (Commander)

Chief Medical Officer :: Doctor Deba Lodaag

Shipboard Councillor :: Lillo Zera (Off-Ship: Currently Assigned to U.S.S. _Sacramento_ following Battle of Relay 314)

Starship Design Statistics:-

Length :: 1080 Meters

Beam :: 378 Meters

Draft :: 136 Meters

Displacement :: 9,808,250 Metric Tons

Cargo Capacity :: 205,700 Tons

Hull Type :: Duranium-Tritanium Composite Double Hull

Armour :: Micro-Fibre Reinforced Hull with Ablative Armour

Decks :: 32 Total, 30 Habitable Decks

Officers :: 390

Crew :: 2550

Evacuation Capacity :: 15,000

Tactical Systems and Strengths:-

Phasers:

Type :: XV

Number of Arrays :: 16

Strength and Power Output :: 85-625 Petawatts (Equivalent to 20-150 Megatons of TNT every second)

Effective Range :: 1,500,000 Kilometres

Torpedo Systems:

Compliment :: 1750 Torpedoes

Torpedo Types :: 1250 Quantum; 500 Photon

Number of Forward Launchers :: 2

Number of Aft Launchers :: 2

Range :: 4,000,000 Kilometres

Shields:

Type :: Redundant Symmetrical Subspace Graviton Field (Regenerative Shield Technology)

Number of Grids :: 13 (26)

Power Output :: 5,850 Petawatts (11,700 Petawatts)

Shield Range :: 10 Meters from Hull

Propulsion Systems:

Warp

Warp Reactor A (Secondary Hull) Type :: General Electric Class 8 Dilithium Focus Chamber

Power Output :: 24.5 Exawatts

Warp Reactor B (Primary Hull – Only Used When Primary and Secondary Hulls are Separated) Type :: RemJet Mark 2 Dilithium Focus Chamber

Power Output :: 2.5 Exawatts

Nacelle Configuration :: Standard Pylons

Maximum Velocity :: Warp 9.995 for 72 Hours

Maximum Cruising Velocity :: Warp 9.99

Maximum Velocity With Quantum Slipstream Drive :: Warp 9.9998 for 2 Hours

Impulse Systems

Number of Engines :: 4

Power Source :: Sovereign Class Mass Drivers

Number of Reactors :: 2

Power Output :: 85 Petawatts

Maximum Impulse Velocity :: 0.75 Speed of Light

Maximum Standard Impulse Velocity :: 0.25 Speed of Light

Thruster Systems

Type :: Galaxy Type Magneto-Hydrodynamic Gas-Fusion

Number :: 35

Output :: 4.5 Million Newtons

Utilities:-

Sensor Arrays

Number :: 50

Type :: Multi-Modal

Range :: 42 Light-years

Tactical Sensors

Number :: 50

Type :: Multi-Modal

Range :: 22 Light-years

Navigational Deflector

Type :: Molybdenum & Duranium Mesh

Power :: 6 Graviton Polarity Generators

Output :: 400 Petawatts

Field Strength :: 850 Millicochranes

Tractors

Power :: 3 - 15 Petawatt Multi-phase Graviton Polarity Sources

Field Strength :: 680 Millicochranes

Minimum Range :: 230 Million tons at 2 Kilometres

Maximum Range :: 1 ton at 30,000 Kilometres

Object Size Range :: Up to 920 Meters

Transporters

Type ::: Personnel

Number :: 6

Payload :: 900 Kilograms

Range :: 40,000 Kilometres

Operations per Hour :: 100 persons per Hour

Type ::: Cargo

Number :: 4

Payload :: 800 Tons

Range :: 40,000 Kilometres

Operations per Hour :: 100 operations per Hour

Type ::: Emergency

Number :: 6

Payload :: 900 Kilograms

Range :: 15,000 Kilometres

Operations per Hour :: 100 persons per Hour

Computer

Type :: AC-16 Bio-Neural Super-System

Version :: LCARS 5

Storage Capacity :: 984 MegaQuads

Processing Speed :: 625,000 ExaFLOPS

Communications Array

Short Range :: 3,200,000 Kilometres

Long Range :: 38 Light-years for Real-Time Transmission

Transmission Capacity :: 18.5 kiloquads per second

Support Craft:-

Shuttle Bays :: 2

Craft Manifest

62 Type 8 Shuttles

20 Type 9 Shuttles

15 Type 11 Shuttles

2 Danube Runabouts

4 ARGO

18 Workbees

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: Apologies for the delayed upload for this chapter, it's been sitting complete in this state for a while now but I kept thinking I could add more to it. Needless to say, those ideas never went anywhere for numerous reasons.** **But, regardless, that's Freedom's Progress essentially done and we'll be picking up steam rather quickly (fingers crossed).**

 **Thanks for all the reviews so far, and yes to all of you who pointed out how under-powered the phasers were during the ground shootout believe me when I say that I knew that when I was writing it. Initial drafts of that scene with the phasers at realistic power levels (in Star Trek terms) just kind of tailed off with everyone seeming OOC (to me anyway), so it was changed for that scene alone so that I could get the ball rolling. This will be rectified in future chapters, make no mistake.**

 **Anyway, onwards and upwards!**

 **See you all in the next chapter!**

 **\- CAS2109**


	7. Chapter 6 - Relay

**["Relay"]**

"Captain, they've locked weapons on us!" alerted Richard's tactical officer as the _U.S.S. Providence_ , a Galaxy-class star ship, lumbered towards the menacing cluster of Dominion orbital defences hanging over a key strategic planet within the Chin'toka system.

Klaxons blaring in his ears as he took a quick glance around the bridge, the captain almost immediately noticed just how tense most of his bridge crew were. Richard sat back in his captain's chair and gently tugged downwards to adjust his red command uniform, exhaling a slightly rattled breath as his eyes returned to the main screen and began to pick through the formation of Dominion and Breen ships approaching the Federation Alliance task group. The presence of the Breen vessels did little to mull the crew's uneasiness either, especially after their recent – and incredibly audacious – attack on Earth; which had been the first time open conflict had taken place on the planet in over two hundred years.

"Direct auxiliary power to forward shields," Lester ordered without further hesitation as he sat up in his chair, tapping a series of sub-commands into his armrest's touchpad, "Attack pattern gamma-six."

Richard's eye returned to the main screen as the ships of the task force began to form into a cohesive attack pattern, with the instantly recognisable hull of the _U.S.S Defiant_ leading the charge towards the Dominion lines. Lester kept a cautionary eye on a trio of Breen ships as they began to rise above the Dominion formation, Richard hadn't faced the Breen in combat before and so wasn't entirely comfortable writing them off as a critical Dominion element in the battle to come.

"Prepare a volley of photon torpedos; ready phasers; fire on the _Defiant_ 's lead," Richard ordered as he returned his attention to the centre of the Dominion line as the _Defiant_ fired a volley of quantum torpedoes, which were quickly followed by weapons fire from the rest of the allied fleet.

The experienced StarFleet officer analysed the Dominion fleet for their response to the barrage as the opening Federation Alliance volley claimed several Breen and Cardassian vessels, bright explosions tearing the unfortunate vessels apart as torpedo detonations and phaser fire consumed them in mere seconds.

Richard's eyes narrowed as the _Providence_ started to manoeuvre in space, tracking a flanking Breen vessel as the allied fleet began to engage the Dominion fleet on their individual attack vectors. What was immediately apparent from the opening exchange was the lack of return fire from the Cardassian ships as the Breen ships continued to disperse from the Dominion line, an oddity further exemplified as the Cardassian vessels took another slugging from various Klingon and Romulan ships which had now entered weapons range.

Lester inwardly frowned as the _Providence_ unleashed a flurry of phaser fire from its saucer banks, striking the Breen vessel amidships as a distinctive shield pattern flickered to life around the impact site and protected the ship from what would have been a crippling blow.

Richard drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair as the _Providence_ fired a volley of three photon torpedos in the direction of the Breen ship, two of which overshot the surprisingly nimble warship while the remaining torpedo impacted harmlessly against its shields.

"Adjust heading to zero-four-zero by one-six-zero," Richard ordered quickly as the Galaxy-class warship began to turn on its axis in order to keep level with the Breen star ship, "Ready another volley. Torpedo spread pattern, theta-six."

One "Aye-sir" after another recognised his order before the _Providence_ fired at the Breen warship once more. This time striking the enemy vessel across its main impulse thrusters and causing its rear shields to totally collapse for a few seconds.

Those few precious seconds gave Lester the opportunity he needed.

The Galaxy-class star ship launched a quartet of photon torpedos in rapid succession, with each torpedo finding their lethal mark in the exposed engine module of the Breen vessel and exploding in a vibrant display of red as the four explosions quickly vapourised the rear of the Breen star ship.

The _Providence_ quickly changed course, swinging around the crippled Breen vessel as Richard ordered an intercept vector on a Cardassian Galor-class star ship which was harassing a wing of Miranda-classes. The unphased Galaxy-class cleared the debris field from the Breen vessel by a sizeable margin, only to be struck almost directly on the main deflector dish by a brilliant pulse of azure-coloured energy that had been fired by the Breen ship moments before its destruction in an act of martyrdom.

The lights on the bridge died almost immediately, with every officer present blinked at their instruments in a moment of confusion as their consoles deactivated. Hundreds of bolts of energy raced across the bridge, jumping from one electronic device to another, deactivating consoles in seconds and causing most of the lighting to fail in an instant. The moment passed with a sudden feeling of dread as the main screen terminated with the view of incoming Dominion weapons fire; the impact from which threw every officer on the bridge violently from their chairs and across the room as half the monitors on the bridge exploded in a shower of sparks.

Richard's head collided with the floor. Hard. The room seemed to spin around the StarFleet officer as a steady stream of blood began to ooze out the side of his face from a rather large gash as he tried to blink himself back to his sense. The room was scarcely illuminated by the occasional, and steadily dying, red-alert lighting as the klaxon faded out into a garbled shriek before dying entirely.

"Captain!" called a voice from over Richard's shoulder as he tried to force himself back to his feet, only for the floor to spin away from him in a sickening spiral as the impact of outside weapons fire on the hull seemed to shake the entire room apart at the seams and send him crashing to the floor again under a hail of hot sparks from a nearby exploding monitor.

"Captain!" called the voice again as the red lighting on the bridge died and the entire world started to slip away from the captain in a steady ebbing which was consistent with the throbbing in his head.

Everything went black as Lester's head slumped limp against the cold floor of the flaming bridge.

* * *

 **[Richard James Lester] – [Captain, U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **– Odyssey Class; NX-97701, Wing XXI, Task Force Omega] – [U.S.S.** _ **Imperator**_ **, Low Orbit of Freedom's Progress]** **– [February 4th, 2410]**

"Captain Lester?" came the steady voice of Commander Ohozi as Richard's eyes snapped open, the central light in his ready room momentarily blinding him as the StarFleet officer blinked himself away from the vivid dream he'd been experiencing moments before.

"What is it, number one?" Lester asked quickly as he suppressed a yawn, not skipping a beat as he slowly rubbed his temples.

"Miss Zorah reports that her modifications to the deflector dish were broadly successful," the andorian continued, making a mental note to question the captain on his lapse in concentration later, "We should be clear to attempt passage through the 'Mass Relay' on the edge of the system."

Richard returned a nod to the situation report as he stood up from his desk, placing a datapad into one of the upper drawers before he stepped away from the desk entirely, "Very good," the captain continued after a moment of thought as he motioned towards the door and began to walk back onto the bridge, "What of the quarian wounded?"

The two officers strode onto the bridge a few moments later, the ambient chatter of the bridge crew going about their duties entering their ears as they walked towards the centre of the large room.

"Stable, for the most part," Thys quickly answered as Lester clasped both hands behind his back, "They've all been loaded aboard the quarian vessel but some are still in a bad way…"

Richard nodded grimly at the news, "I take it that the quarians will be departing for their 'Migrant Fleet' at the earliest opportunity?"

"That seems to be the general consensus among the quarians at the moment," Thys affirmed quickly as the two officers arrived by the command chair, "Miss Zorah wishes to get underway as soon as possible."

"That eager?" Lester queried as he sat down and adjusted his uniform with a sharp tug, he smirked as he continued, "From her attitude earlier, I got the impression that she was here to stay…"

Ohozi chuckled for a brief moment as he stood behind Lester, "That changed when we picked up various transmissions coming from the relay."

Richard rubbed his chin for a few moments in thought, "The rescue effort?" he mused as he glanced at Ohozi.

"As far as we can tell, yes," Thys responded with a curt nod before Lester slowly held up his hand and tapped his combadge.

"Bridge to Commander Langley," the captain paused for a moment, "Langley could you send Miss Zorah to the bridge?"

Ohozi resumed his report after Lester gave him a nod, "Whatever system the relay is connected to, it's outside our sensor range and we can't make sense of the data we're getting through the relay."

"So we're blind as to what's on the other side?" Richard continued as his eyes wandered back to the view-screen, taking a moment to skim over the surface of Freedom's Progress that seemed to hang in space beneath them.

"More or less," Thys summarised with a nod, "And since the 'rescue' effort will likely have a military escort the quarians want to bug out sooner rather than later."

Richard nodded as the andorian finished, from the quarians' perspective they'd likely believe that they'd be targeted by trigger happy captains looking to pin the disaster on the first scapegoat they came across. Something that the quarians would be close to the top of a list on, especially considering how poorly the rest of the galaxy viewed them, and, as baseless as such an accusation would be, Richard wasn't one to bet that the quarians felt like taking such a risk.

"Very well," Richard began with a murmur as he heard the doors to one of the bridge turbolifts open, "Helm, plot a course for the relay," he paused for a moment as Tlalve quickly nodded in acknowledgement of the order before turning back to his station, "Prep the warp drive – we may not have much time to clear out of this system before someone comes knocking."

"I agree," came the distinctly accented voice of Tali'Zorah as the quarian walked towards the command chair, with Prazza exiting the turbolift a few steps behind her, "I wouldn't put it past the pirate groups to try their luck before the rescue fleet gets here and this system is totally locked down…"

"Ah, Tali," Richard nodded over his shoulder in greeting, "We should get underway as soon as possible," the Starfleet officer stood up from his chair and turned to face the younger quarian as he passed a momentarily glance at Prazza, "Is your ship ready for departure?"

"Yes," Tali replied without missing a beat, "They'll leave the planet's surface once we're back on-board."

"Very well," Captain Lester nodded before gesturing towards his ready room, "Tali, if you'd follow me for one moment…"

The quarian glanced nervously at her peer before following Richard back towards his ready room, glancing over her shoulder once more at Prazza before she entered the room in the captain's footsteps.

Tali seemed to pause for a few moments, looking around the room as Lester walked over to his desk. When Richard turned back to look at her, datapad in hand, he found her looking over the two model ships mounted on the far wall of the room alongside various pieces of vulcan and andorian artwork.

Richard's eye flashed over the golden models, a Galaxy-class and a Sovereign-class, before returning to Tali as the quarian realised that she was gawking.

"S-sorry," she apologised sheepishly as she rubbed her arm, "I just-"

"It's fine, Tali," Richard said as he raised his hand reassuringly, "I won't keep you long."

The quarian gave the captain a curious look as he took a step back and gently sat on his desk, glancing at the pad in his hand as Lester tapped a series of entries displayed on the screen.

"I wanted to talk about this 'Commander Shepard' we ran into on the surface," Richard began as he glanced up from the datapad, immediately noticing a change in Tali's posture as he mentioned the commander by name, "Since you two seemed to know each other…I figured you'd be the best person to ask about him…"

Lester noticed that Tali blinked a few times before she replied, "I served with the commander a few years ago, when I was on my Pilgrimage…" the captain's eyes returned to the datapad entry he had pulled up on the screen, "What do you want to know?"

"Where he stands," Lester replied quickly as his eyes returned to the quarian, "His character…As well as any concerns you may have noted about him," Richard placed the datapad aside as only silence answered him, "This is not an interrogation, Tali," the captain's tone was assuring but there was a pressing nature to it, "My crew and I find ourselves in a position where we may not have many people we can and cannot trust. I only want to know which list I can add Shepard's name to…"

Tali was silent for a few more seconds, wringing her hands together in thought before she looked at the captain, "You can trust Shepard. He's an Alliance hero."

" _Was_ an Alliance hero," Richard corrected without a trace of malice in his voice as he held up the datapad, which displayed a codex entry on the Supposedly-Late-Commander John Shepard, he then began to read from it, "Saviour of the Citadel. Hero of Elysium. Awarded the Star of Terra, graduated the N7 program with distinction…And was the first human Spectre…" the captain trailed off as he scrolled through a list of innumerable commendations, "Hell of a soldier," he looked up at Tali, "And he's been listed as Killed in Action for the past two years."

Tali visibly flinched at the captain's words, "I-I'm as dumbstruck as you are in that regard," she started wringing her hands slightly faster as her eyes darted back to the model ships, "But it was definitely him down there. I-I don't know how," she looked at Richard with conviction, "But it _was_ him."

Lester gave her a moment of pause as he looked the quarian over. The captain had developed a great 'bullshit' detector over his decades of service in StarFleet, and he was more than confident in his ability to tell if she was either lying to him, or deliberately holding something back.

"You'd trust the Shepard we saw on the surface as much as you would the man you knew two years ago?" Richard asked as he set the datapad aside on the table and lightly crossed his arms.

"With my life," the quarian answered without so much as blinking, seeming almost insulted by the question.

"Thank you for your time, Tali," was Richard's only response as he stood up with a polite nod and directed the quarian back towards the door as the two walked back towards the bridge.

* * *

Richard tapped his fingers against the armrest of his command chair in a quiet rhythm, his eyes watching the view-screen as the seconds ticked by. The shuttle which had carried Tali and Prazza to the surface less than half an hour ago had since docked with the _Imperator_ again, and the last remnants of the medical team which had been deployed planetside to assist with the quarian wounded had also been transported back to the ship.

"Sensors are reporting that the quarian ship is now in motion," reported Miranda as Richard motioned for Tlalve to begin manoeuvring the ship to face away from the planet's surface.

"Overlay their trajectory on the main screen," Lester ordered as the planet began to pan away with the new movements of the ship, a few seconds passed before a faint representation of the quarian ship's anticipated heading appeared on the screen in the form of a dotted line.

"Go to warp five once the quarians align themselves with the relay and jump," Lester ordered after looking over their trajectory, "Let's not waste any more time than necessary…"

"Aye sir," came the quick response from Tlalve as the helmsman glanced over his console and gave the captain an affirmative nod.

Lester stood up from his command chair and walked towards Miranda's station, looking over her shoulder at the sensor data displayed on it as the quarian vessel, appropriately tagged as a light frigate by the ship's sensors, began to rise away from the planet in a steady, yet noticeably lumbering, climb.

"Are we detecting any contacts around the relay?" Lester asked once the quarian ship broke atmosphere and began adjusting its heading towards the relay.

Miranda shook her head, "Nothing on sensors, aside from some bizarre readings from the relay itself."

"Anything we should be concerned about?" Richard asked as he took a step back from her station and rubbed his chin in thought for a few moments.

The trill was silent for a few moments, double checking the scans of the relay before she looked over her shoulder at the captain, "I can't say with one-hundred percent certainty, but the reading's remained the same the entire time we've been in-system…" she trailed off for a moment, "Though I'm not exactly sure just _how_ this reading would change if it had recently been used…"

"Very well, Lieutenant Commander," Lester said with a small nod as he returned to his command chair.

"The quarians are preparing to jump," stoically reported Poss a few moments later, the vulcan barely lifting his eyes from his console as he spoke.

"Warp five," the captain quickly ordered as the quarian ship began to pick up speed at a rapid rate, he motioned forward with his hand as the ship seemed to spaghetti away from them in an instant before all trace of it was gone, "Execute."

Lester scratched at his cheek as he glanced at Miranda's station just in time to see the trill archive the data obtained from the quarian ship jumping to FTL. The captain gave her an approving nod before directing his attention back to the view-screen as the Odyssey-class star ship went to warp speed.

* * *

Grevile Drarpawen, formerly a captain of a fairly respectable Blue Suns' cruiser, stared past the man sitting opposite him. Partially blinded by the bright light behind the man – the only light source in the otherwise featureless room, Grevile had to really focus with all four of his eyes to make out any features of note about the shadowy man's appearance.

"Captain Drarpawen, _could you focus please_?" the man asked, clearly irritated by Grevile's recent lapse in concentration, Drarpawen's eyes drifted to where the man's face should have been and squinted as the light seemed to only get brighter, "What happened at the Omega Prime Relay?"

The Batarian flinched at the question before glancing at the table, screams and alarms ringing out in his ears as he briefly found himself back on the bridge of his ship.

He took a deep, shaky breath as he looked up from the table and opened his mouth to speak.

* * *

"Dropping us out of warp in five seconds," reported Tlalve moments before tapping his fingers against a series of command screens on his console.

Richard nodded as he returned his attention to the view-screen just as the _Imperator_ dropped from warp speed.

The mass relay, shaped like an enormous tuning fork with a shimmering mass of blue energy partially encased by a pair of spinning rings, hung above the Federation star ship and cast a foreboding blue glare against the white and black hull of the _Imperator_.

"Impressive," Thys murmured as he walked from his own chair until he was in-line with Richard's, "Looks massive," the andorian commented as his eyes walked across the screen in fascination before he turned his head towards Lester, "Who built them?"

"There's not much to go on," Lester replied after a moment of thought, his mind drifting back to the codex entries he'd read as his eyes trailed from the view-screen towards Thys, "But the general consensus is that a race called the Protheans constructed them sometime before they went extinct…"

Thys nodded slowly, "That's it?"

Richard nodded.

"Captain, I am detecting an approaching energy signature," Poss announced calmly as he looked up from his console, "It seems to match that of the quarian ship."

"Very well," Lester nodded as his attention snapped back to the view-screen, "Alert Chief Engineer Langley that we will be using the deflector dish for relay transit within the next few minutes…"

* * *

"My ship and several others were preparing to jump through the relay," Grevile murmured, growing tired of the man's games, he was entirely confident that the man opposite him was human - having already ruled out most of the other races - as no Batarian could be so irritating to talk to, "Intent on scouting the colony of Freedom's Progress for anything of value during the small time window before the search and rescue fleet arrived."

The human seemed disgusted by the notion, but continued regardless, "And then what happened?"

"Turns out the quarians had beaten us to it," Grevile added with a half-hearted laugh which died quickly, "Damned suit-rats came out of the relay while we were lining up our approach…"

"How did you know they were quarian?" the man asked as he sat back in his chair, causing more light to flood the batarian's face and blind him further.

"The turians haven't flown that model in decades," Grevile shot back, remembering the words of his turian weapons control officer moments after the quarian ship had appeared almost in the middle of the Blue Suns' formation, "So they had to be quarians…"

"And then what happened?"

"We locked weapons, jammed their long-range comms…" Grevile's tone had slipped back into his usual smug demeanour, though a lingering fear lurked at the back of his mind, "Told them to surrender their vessel and prepare to be boarded," he glanced back at the man and shrugged, "If the suit-rats were carrying what they'd picked off the colony then we wouldn't even have to make the trip…"

* * *

"Ten seconds," Nick timed as the entire bridge watched the relay, the sight of the quarian ship being struck by an unusual discharge of energy before near-instantly achieving a speed magnitudes greater than warp ten had left the entire room largely quiet, "Fifteen."

"Anything?" Richard asked as he turned his attention to Poss, the quarians were supposed to transmit either an all-clear or a scatter signal after they'd made the jump – the last thing Richard wanted to do was jump a kilometre-long Federation star ship into the middle of a civilian rescue fleet.

If they even survived the jump at all…

But total silence? Richard frowned, he didn't expect Tali to leave him out to dry after the _Imperator_ 's medical teams had revived damned near all of her team.

"Something's wrong," Thys muttered, echoing Lester's thoughts as the seconds dragged by, "We should have received a signal by now…"

"Agreed," Richard nodded as his head snapped towards the view-screen, "Helm, line up an approach vector, stand by deflector dish," the captain tugged down on his command uniform, "Yellow alert."

The _Imperator_ lumbered towards the looming mass relay, its body starting to pitch clockwise as Tlalve made a series of course corrections.

* * *

"And then what happened?" the man pressed Grevile further, frustration creeping back into his voice.

The batarian became distant again for a few moments before repeating what he'd said already, "The _Lucein_ and the _Fresa_ moved in to begin boarding operations…"

"You've said this before," the man cut across him, even with his face masked by the blinding light Grevile could tell he was running out of patience, "What happened next?"

"Then…" was all Grevile could muster before he blinked away the terror that was clearly starting to show and took a series of deep, calming breaths.

* * *

The _Imperator_ began picking up speed, closing the remaining distance between itself and the relay at a rapid rate as the entire ship began to orient itself in a way so that it would run parallel with the two prongs of the massive prothean device.

The enormous deflector dish of the Odyssey-class star ship flared to life with a ghostly blue beam of light, letting loose a stream of element-zero-like particles as it began to pass the slowly spinning rings of the mass relay.

"All hands," Richard announced over a ship-wide communications channel as the blue light coming from within the rings seemed to get brighter by a _significant_ factor of magnitude – if the view-screen wasn't outright malfunctioning, "Brace for relay transit…"

* * *

Grevile looked back at the man with a newfound shaking in his hands; unable to contain the terror, which had been fighting its way to the surface of his being since he'd starting talking, any longer, "Then all hell broke loose…"

* * *

Tali was fighting back a panic as the sortie of Blue Suns' ships moved to board her defenceless ship. They didn't stand a chance, not with half the crew physically unable to perform maintenance duties – never mind repel heavily armed boarders.

The young quarian dashed from one side of the bridge to the other, barely more than a few meters in reality but to her it felt like she was running across the entire ship, almost running into the communications console as she threw herself into the seat and began frantically trying to bypass the Blue Suns' jamming frequency.

Tali glanced up from the console towards the observation viewport in the bridge just as the Blue Suns vessels began to align themselves with several of the _Verricaw_ 's exterior access ports, the logo of the notorious mercenary organisation large and overbearing on the sides of the two approaching ships as the distant sun gleamed against them.

"Bosh'tets!" Tali exclaimed in frustration as the dated communications equipment of the _Verricaw_ failed to keep up with her efforts to break through the jamming.

The machinist noticed a bright flash of light in the corner of her eye and exhaled slowly, half expecting to feel a mass accelerator round impact the small frigate and tear it apart at any moment. The feeling of explosive decompression tearing the small craft apart never came however, and so Tali's eyes opened and she slowly started to turn to face the observation viewport just in time to see the Blue Suns' formerly careful approach splinter apart into an uncoordinated redeployment to face some unseen new arrival.

Tali noted that the sensors were displaying a new contact had arrived in-system which was putting out an insane volume of energy every second. The same contact they'd seen less than two minutes ago.

Tali stood up from the console and walked towards the viewport, a smile sliding onto her face as the entire bridge erupted into cheers.

* * *

"Jump complete!" Tlalve reported immediately after the entire bridge had hung on for dear life from the sudden acceleration provided by the relay, with the sudden deceleration nearly sending half the bridge crumpling to the floor as the dim bridge lights flickered for a few moments, "Warp core's spun to zero, restarting now…"

"Status report!" Richard called out after Tlalve's report as he released his vice-like grip on his armrest and glanced over the scene now displayed on the view-screen.

"We have multiple contacts of unknown designs are advancing on the quarian ship!" Miranda reported almost immediately as the view-screen snapped to show the aforementioned new ships, "Detecting a significant number of in-system contacts, as well as a large concentration of contacts around what seems to be an inhabited asteroid…"

"Shields have dropped to six percent," Nick reported less than a second later, "Recharging now. All phaser banks are hot. I'm getting a warning from the torpedo launch tubes, antiproton beams remain off-line…"

"Noted," Lester murmured, his voice masking the concern that was starting to seep into his thoughts, "Tactical analysis of the ships around the _Verricaw_?"

Nick paused for a few moments as he began a scan, "Minimal," he answered after looking over the results, "One spinal railgun per ship, barely a few kilotons each, as well as an assortment of…" Nick looked over his data again, almost sounding bemused as he continued, "Point-defence laser weapons…"

" _Lasers_?" Thys asked incredulously, glancing at Lester in disbelief, " _And_ railguns?"

"Yes sir," Nick answered immediately as a smile tugged at his face, "They appear to be sporting the same kinetic defence shielding as the _Verricaw_ , albeit more durable."

"Come between the ships and the Verricaw," Lester ordered as Thys held back a chortle as he returned to his seat, "Open a hailing fre-"

Lester's order was interrupted as one of the ships broke formation with the others, firing a panicked burst of projectiles at the _Imperator_ as it nearly collided with two of its compatriots, causing their entire formation of ships to break apart as they moved to reform.

"Damage report," the captain requested as the volley projectiles hit the _Imperator_ 's shields and bounced off entirely, causing a brief period of barely noticeable shaking on the bridge.

"Shields undamaged, recharging again; now at ten percent," Nick reported without hesitation as the ships started to fall back away from the relay, "The new ships are moving back to a new firing line."

"Communication from the _Verricaw_ , captain," Poss reported a few moments later, "Audio only."

"Put it through," Richard ordered as he sat back in his chair and watched the ships retreat from the scene before slowing again and starting to turn, "Continue our advance, I want us between them and the _Verricaw_ …"

" _Oh, Keelah_ ," came the voice of Tali over the speakers barely a moment later, " _They took out our long range communications, I thought we were done for_!"

"Get out-system, Tali," Lester requested as he sat forwards in his chair and rubbed his hands together slowly, "Once you're out of the firing line, we'll deal with these aggressors…"

A few seconds of silence answered him before Tali, though clearly hesitant about the request, began talking again, " _O-okay, we'll align for our next jump now_ ," the quarian was silent for a few moments, " _The Blue Suns won't negotiate; this is the heart of criminal space, don't let them catch you with your guard down,_ "the quarian's warning rung true in the captain's ears, somewhat suspecting that they'd already be in a sizeable firefight if that stray round had pierced the Imperator's shields, " _Thank you again, captain_."

"Pleasure's all mine, Tali'Zorah," Lester smirked back, "Get your people home, we'll handle the rest. Lester out."

" _Keelah se'lai_ ," was Tali's response before the channel terminated, leaving the bridge crew of the Imperator in silence to watch as the small quarian ship began to turn on its axis and head back towards the relay.

The captain's eye hovered on the quarian ship for a moment before it vanished from the view-screen as the _Imperator_ passed it, now placing itself between the _Verricaw_ and the small flotilla of the new ships.

"Open a hailing frequency," Richard ordered as the Federation star ship slowed to a halt relative to the flotilla of ships before it.

"No response," Poss reported soon after.

"Are the Blue Suns receiving the hail?" Richard asked, passing a glance towards Poss as the vulcan nodded in response.

"Sir, I am detecting additional contacts approaching on a bearing from the asteroid settlement!" Miranda yelled abruptly, causing Thys and Lester to share a cautionary glance, "Two groups, one heading for that flotilla, another looking to block the relay!"

"Tonnage and ETA of the incoming contacts?" The captain asked after a moment of thought, he didn't want to instigate a major confrontation – even if one of the other ships had fired first; however, he also couldn't afford for the quarian ship to be destroyed by a first strike from the growing fleet of ships. While the _Imperator_ could trade blows with these ships for literally weeks, the _Verricaw_ wouldn't last more than a few seconds.

"Both groups comprised of; four frigate sized contacts, three contacts are mid-range and one contact appears to be around the same size as us…" Miranda rattled off quickly, "Twenty seconds until they arrive."

"How long until the quarians line themselves up for another relay transit?" Richard asked as the seconds began to tick down.

"Thirty..."

Richard let out a frustrated sigh, "Back us up," he commanded as his head snapped from Tlalve to Nick, "Prepare ventral tractor beam," pausing for a moment as he glanced back at the ships staring him down, "Once we are in range, give the quarians a nudge towards the relay. That should speed up their exit…"

Nick returned an understanding nod as Tlalve began to back the _Imperator_ towards the quarian ship. Richard's eyes remained locked on the distant ships displayed on the view-screen as the ship began its steady backpedalling, beginning to weigh up the consequences of firing first in the event of the standoff turning sour.

"Sir, I am detecting a power build-up within several of the ships in that flotilla," Nick warned a few moments later, snapping Richard's attention away from the view-screen and towards the tactical officer, "They are moving to target the _Verricaw_."

"They are correcting their course," Miranda reported a split second later, "New bearing suggests they're going to pass us, hit the _Verricaw_ and then jump through the relay…"

Richard nodded sullenly, "Lock phasers, bring us about," he tapped his knuckles against his command chair armrest several times, "Extend our shields around the _Verricaw_ …"

As the bridge crew affirmed his order, the Odyssey-class began to swing around on its axis before moving at full power back towards the quarian ship, though it quickly finding itself surrounded as the remainder of the Blue Suns' ships, as well as numerous other mercenary star ships of varying class – with two of them rivaling the _Imperator_ in size.

"We have sixteen ships additional out there, sir," Miranda reported as Nick extended the _Imperator_ 's shields around the small quarian ship, causing the aged formerly-turian frigate to glow a translucent blue with each rotation of the Odyssey-class' shields, "Most models match the general design style of the _Verricaw_ , but are definitely better equipped…"

Lester chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds as the new arrivals began to form up into what were obviously attack formations, with the StarFleet captain noting that each formation seemed to use a large number of smaller tonnage vessels with one or two larger vessels leading the pack. The largest vessels among the new arrivals, both of which were essentially a much larger _Verricaw_ that were nearly on-par with the _Imperator_ in terms of dimensions, had started to back away from the relay – obviously to use their weapons to greater effectiveness.

"Hail the larger ships," Richard ordered as the _Imperator_ slowed its withdrawal once it had closed the distance between itself and the quarian ship, "Inform them that armed conflict is not necessary and, if they do not object, we will be on our way."

"Shields recharged to forty-six percent, sir," Nick reported as Poss relayed the message to the larger Blue Suns vessels, "I am detecting several ships have engaged their firing sequences."

"No response from the Blue Suns, captain," Poss informed stoically, "They are attempting to jam our communications with the _Verricaw_."

"Return the favour, jam their communications," Lester ordered as he stood up and walked over towards Nick with his hands clasped behind his back, "Mister Hansen, I'd say it's time to raise our voice a little…"

"They may have beaten us to it," the lieutenant commander replied with a cautious tone, "They're firing on the _Verricaw_!"

Richard's eyes snapped to the view-screen as several Blue Suns vessels opened fire on the small quarian frigate, several streaks of hyper-accelerated blue mass launching from numerous vessels and crossing the distance towards the _Verricaw_ in the blink of an eye.

The bridge went silent as the rounds impacted and bounced off the now-reinforced shield of the quarian frigate before scattering into the empty void of space. Lester propped one of his arms under the other and scratched his chin as he glanced at the shielding integrity – quickly noting that the combined assault hadn't even caused the shield regeneration to pause, even with the shields being overextended across two vessels.

"Well, if that's the best they can do," Thys chimed in as he stood beside the captain, "This should last about ten seconds…"

"I'm inclined to agree, Mister Ohozi," Richard nodded as he watched the quarian ship continue its approach towards the mass relay unperturbed, "Nick, target the vessels which just opened fire, designate all others as secondary targets of opportunity," he glanced back at the view-screen as the Blue Suns attack formations began to advance on them, "One shot each from the ventral phaser arrays," he clasped his hands behind his back again as he looked at Tlalve, "Go to full impulse once the quarian ship passes through the relay, take us through the heart of their formation…"

Nick had the aforementioned ships targeted before the captain had even finished speaking and, as more energy spikes were detected throughout the Blue Suns fleet now that the quarian ship had begun transiting the relay, Lester gave the order with a nod.

"Fire."

* * *

The Blue Suns' fleet opened fire again just as the _Imperator_ 's ventral phaser arrays came to life, streaks of blue tears criss-crossing with powerful orange rays as the space between the Federation star ship and the turian-warship-dominated Blue Suns ships came alive with colour.

Dozens of rock-sized projectiles bounced against the shielding of both the _Imperator_ and the _Verricaw_ before being flicked away with little in the way of effort before the quarian ship vanished from the area entirely – struck by the relay's energy and catapulted dozens light years away in the blink of an eye. Leaving the Odyssey-class alone in a storm of blue projectiles hitting it from nearly all directions, although many rounds overshot the star ship entirely, quickly disappearing into the inky-black cosmos beyond.

The _Imperator_ 's phasers, however, though lacking in fire rate compared with the hurricane of blue opposing it, made up for the minor shortfall in the form of bucket loads of deadly precision. The unfortunate vessels targeted by the initial volley of phaser fire barely had any time to react as the ventral phaser arrays charged and fired almost instantly.

Typically, StarFleet ships had to contend with first downing a substantial energy shield around an attacking ship before they could hope to deal any substantial damage to the hull; however, with the shields on these targeted vessels designed solely to repulse kinetic attacks – not directed particle energy like the phasers – nothing activated to save the doomed ships from their fates.

The beams of nadion particles hit the hulls of the Blue Suns vessels and punched straight through them with enough force to jerk the unfortunate vessels almost ninety degrees off their course. The superstructures of the doomed ships torn in irregular directions before the ships were literally annihilated in brilliant explosions of blues and reds, sending shockwaves through the Blue Suns formation that claimed several more ships as their element zero drives overloaded and failed, leaving many ships powerless as the _Imperator_ began to charge towards the formations of Blue Suns vessels as they fell to pieces due to the commanders and crews aboard their ships panicking.

The surviving Blue Suns dreadnought fired off a single shot, with the round – while usually more than enough to cause a typical dreadnought to slow its advance – being swatted away by the _Imperator_ 's shields a few seconds before the Federation star ship fired again, claiming more victims and crippling the dreadnought with a volley of pin-point phaser fire as the Odyssey-class ran straight through the routing formation.

Lines of red fired from the broadsides of numerous other ships as they fired their GARDIAN laser defence systems in a vain attempt to break the shielding of the unstoppable warship barreling straight through them. The _Imperator_ 's shielding flared to life, absorbing every single volley of fire sent at it before swatting away the growing debris field that had now started to block the ship's path.

The tapered warp nacelles of the _Imperator_ glowed a dazzling blue as the Odyssey-class cleared the defeated Blue Suns fleet, the entire ship rotating in space for a few slow moments before it launched itself beyond the warp barrier with a flash of light. Leaving behind a flaming debris field of twisted metal, arcing electrical fields from dying element zero reactors and the rapid pulsing of emergency navigation beacons.

* * *

 **Author's Sidenote: And we're back! So that concludes both Chapter 6 and the prologue arc, I hope you've enjoyed it thus far. Apologies for the delay in the upload of this chapter, but I felt like taking a bit of a break after finishing Lost in Time last month so hopefully that's not too much of an issue.**

 **I think that I portrayed the battle at the end of this chapter fairly realistically, though if you have any complaints with it don't be afraid to share them, as I wouldn't put it past the Blue Suns to pull a move this poorly thought through (these are the same guys who thought ti would be a good idea to capture Commander Shepard after letting them on board heavily armed); so hopefully it was at the very least entertaining.**

 **Thanks for all the reviews thus far! I do take the time to read them and try to take them to heart as I continue with the story.**

 **See you all in the next chapter!**

 **\- CAS2109**


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